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A CRITICISM OF
SYSTEMS OF HEBREW
METRE

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE

By WILLIAM HENRY COBB

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1905

+
oo
aT
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH

NEW YORK AND TORONTO
INTRODUCTION

Tue time required to read the books worth reading so
greatly exceeds the reading-time in any man’s life, that each
new book is properly challenged to show its importance and
its freshness. It will not be denied that a system of Hebrew
metre is important if true; for at the present moment, the
whole field of Hebrew literature is in unstable equilibrium ;
to nothing fixed but love of change. There are many who
assert and many who deny the value of metrical analysis as
an aid in critical investigation of the original text; of the
former class, there are various schools to be considered,
each finding plausible reasons in favour of its position
against all the others. The sublime confidence of the
typical Metriker in his own statements of fact, which con-
tradict his neighbour’s statements regarding the same passage
and even the same verse, is quite explicable when one
remembers Legree’s dictum in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ‘I do
the weighing.’ Surely here, if anywhere, there is a call for
level-headed judgement, that is, criticism; not necessarily
condemnation, but the separation of the chaff from the wheat,
and the judicial deciding among the doctors who disagree.
If Englishmen and Americans have been somewhat back-
ward in propounding theories, they may come forward with
better grace in the rdle of Daniel. Germany as usual takes
the lead in attempting to solve the problems before us ; her
scholars, from Gomarus in the seventeenth century, through
Leutwein in the eighteenth, and Ley in the nineteenth, to
iv Systems of Hebrew Metre

Sievers in the twentieth, have put forth their brilliant and
varied schemes for reducing Hebrew poetry to a versified
form; of late years, America has published contributions,
bearing on the same subject, by Professors Briggs, Brown,
Arnold, Haupt, and others; but no English or American
system of Hebrew metre has appeared since the days of
Bishop Lowth, who held that no system was practicable.
I do not forget Sir William Jones and his (Latin) commen-
taries on Asiatic poetry; but these could hardly be con-
sidered as forming a system.

Lowth and others after him ventured to assert that all
possible solutions of the problem had already been proposed.
There is a curious similarity in the language, upon this point,
of Lowth (1753), De Wette (1811), Ewald (1835), Budde
(1874), and Kuenen (German edition, 1894), but the event
has proved them all mistaken. It is well to call attention
to the second challenge above mentioned; a system must
not only be important, but fresh. Never were truer words
spoken than those of the Scotch teacher, John Henderson:
‘More men become writers from ignorance than from know-
ledge, not knowing that they have been anticipated. Let us
decide with caution and write late.’ A typical instance in
point may be given here as well as anywhere. When
Professor Karl Budde, abandoning an earlier scepticism,
presented in 1882 his well-known fd theory, he remarked
that this particular form had been noticed in a general way
by Lowth, &c., but that Keil (in Havernick’s Introduction,
1849) was the first to describe it correctly as marked by
three tones plus two. And yet Bellermann (Versuch iiber die
Metrik der Hebrder, 1813, p. 137) has the following remark
on the third chapter of the book of Lamentations : ‘Something
characteristic appears in this lamentation, namely, that the
second hemistich consists fifty times of only two feet, while
the first hemistich regularly numbers three of them. Because
Introduction v

of this significant preponderance, I would call this elegy
jive-footed’).

The reader will observe that Budde mentions Lowth.
Now Rosenmiiller’s edition of Lowth (1815, p. 565) refers
to this very passage in Bellermann, and that is the edition
commonly used in Germany. But we shall find eventually
that Bellermann has been too much neglected by others also
who have unconsciously depended on him. In the case of
Budde himself, the oversight just noted is more than balanced
by the frank confession which he makes in the article ‘Poetry
(Hebrew),’ in Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible, and which
I take pleasure in quoting: ‘We have here to do with
a subject akin to mathematics, a subject giving scope for
playing with numbers. It is a fact perhaps too little
observed, that all departments of study akin to this offer
a special incentive to the ingenuity. One need only recall
the subject of Chronology. One must have at some time
gone deeply for himself into the subject of Hebrew metre
and triumphed over the temptation to lose oneself there,
before he can understand the attraction wielded by such
speculations. Since the present writer has had this experi-
ence he has no finished metrical system to offer, nor can he
attach himself unreservedly to any of the others that have
been proposed, although he cheerfully concedes that to each
of the above-named champions of metre we are indebted for
much stimulus and help.’

On the title-page of this volume I have called attention
to its elementary character. For a comprehensive treatise on
Hebrew metre, that will endure every scientific test, we still
wait ; we must probably wait long. Meanwhile, let us heartily
second the suggestion of Professor Hubert Grimme (Psal-
menprobleme, 1902, p. viii): ‘In my view, the welfare of the
young science of biblical metrics is to be found in special

1 I return to this matter on p, 107.
vi Systems of Hebrew Metre

investigation rather than in broad, systematic effusions’ ;
and let us hope that one or more competent scholars will
be able to devote to these subjects as many years of
conscientious labour as Westphal gave to kindred re-
searches. It cannot be amiss, even now, to take one’s
bearings in the sea of controversy, and present to the best
of one’s ability the state of the question. If it be objected
that this very thing has lately been done by Schlégl and by
Déller (both in 1899), and by Kénig in his Sé#Zistik (1900) ;
if it be added that the entire material was thrashed out
a dozen years ago by no less a critic than Kuenen himself
in his Evnleitung; there are three replies to make. First,
these works, except the last-named, are very little known in
England or America; next, some of the best investigations
have appeared since the death of Kuenen; and lastly, his
method is reversed in the present treatise, which instead of
holding up the defects of each successive theory, attempts
to find the merits, and by combining results, to indicate how
far we have gone. Of course, the two methods imply each
other; the extrication of what is true involves the ascertain-
ment of what is untrue; but the difference in emphasis is no
slight matter. In the attempt to be fair to each author,
I assume that when a system of Hebrew metre has been
carefully wrought out by a competent scholar, then, to use
a common phrase, ‘there is something in it’; and what that
is, it is our business to find. The ideal aimed at is a patient
induction of the facts accessible, a sound deduction of the
principles involved, and an unbiassed application of those
principles to the theories under review. Every theory
accounts for some facts; a plausible theory accounts for
most of the facts; the true theory when found will take in
all of the facts naturally; hence it is to be reached by a
positive rather than a negative process.

The reader of this book is supposed to know three
Introduction vii

things; Hebrew, English, and poetry. Outside of these
bounds he is not asked to travel. It would have been easy
to give the work a more learned look by discussing, for
example, the Assyrian parallels noted in 1884 by Ernest
Budge, in 1895 by Hermann Gunkel, and in 1896 by
Delitzsch and Zimmern’. But supposing these Assyriolo-
gists to have made out their case, it has only predisposed us
to expect something similar in Hebrew; that bias is imme-
diately overcome if we do not find it; so why not let the
Hebrew stand on its own bottom? As things are now, to
draw inferences of this sort from one Semitic tongue to
another is to do what the late Mr. John Fiske called guess-
ing at half the truth and multiplying it by two. On the
other hand, a thorough knowledge of Hebrew cannot be
dispensed with. A selected list of metrical passages may
suffice to deduce certain general principles, but can never
establish a science. Still less can we rely on transliterations
alone. Ifthe reader fancies that he knows Hebrew when he
can read ‘852m and not pniay he is only deceiving himself.

What I mean by a knowledge of English includes its
development as well as its latest forms. Suffice it for the
present to observe that when any given species of rhythm
is both common and proper throughout the history of Eng-
lish verse, it will not be necessary to alter a Hebrew text
on account of the same phenomenon there.

The third requisite is as essential and rare as either of
the others; a knowledge of poetry. Poetry differs from
prose—both as to form and substance—only in degree, not
in kind. But differ it does, and many a plausible emenda-
tion shatters against this rock. It is strange to what lengths
some have gone in the process of transforming the noble
poetry of the Old Testament into the rudest prose, making
thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley.

1 Cf. D. H. Miiller, Dze Propheten (1896), part i, sec. 1.
CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
InTRODUCTION : i . an! ois . iii

I. Inpuctive . : i é 5 : ‘ 3

Il. Earry Metricat Systems . : i « 35
III. Ewarp anp Ernst Meier . : . . 62
IV. Ley anp Buppe . ‘ ‘ j i . 83
V. BickELL AND THE SYLLABLE . : . . 108
VI. Mixer anp THE STROPHE . ‘ ‘ . 129
VII. Grimms anp THE MoraE. ‘ ‘ . 152
VIII. Sievers anD THE ANaPAEST . ; ; - 169
IX. Resurts . Bi 68 . . : . 185
BIBiocRaPHY . ; ; : : 4 . Igor
APPENDIX . ; é 3 , : : ‘ » 203

InDEXES . i ‘ i : : ; - 210
A CRITICISM

OF

SYSTEMS OF HEBREW METRE

COBB

NM
CHAPTER I

INDUCTIVE

Art the outset of our investigation, the field is equally open
to all theories. Hebrew poetry may be wholly metrical, or
wholly non-metrical, or partly the one and partly the other.

ERRATA

P, 8, 1. 2, for feet read stichoi
P. 85, 1.17, for 2 Sam. 22 read 2 Sam. 1, 22
P. 166, 1. 12 from bottom, for wd) read ND}

Cobb's Hebrew Metre

what men have thought about them. The umpire in each.
case must be the reader’s own intelligent judgement. Doth
not the ear try words as the mouth tasteth meat? We look
for our facts in the most likely place, namely, in the Book
of Psalms. Some of these, as the alphabetical psalms and
the pilgrim psalms of Book V, and all the psalms of Book I,
have been so fought over in metrical contests that the smoke
of battle might obscure their natural scansion. We turn,
then, to the middle books, and since criticism must start
from the received text, we will take it as it stands, for the
present, reading for the sense as we would read a passage
B 2
CHAPTER I

INDUCTIVE

Art the outset of our investigation, the field is equally open
to all theories. Hebrew poetry may be wholly metrical, or
wholly non-metrical, or partly the one and partly the other.
It may be rhythmical rather than metrical—as a whole, or
in spots. It may be strophic now and then, or entirely;
again, it may not be strophic at all. Criticism is perhaps
able, perhaps unable, to certify to us a purer text, which may
have been more truly metrical, or even less so, than that
which the Massoretes have delivered. Finally, the facts may
warrant nothing but an agnostic position on some or all
of these points. Our science is not so young, but that
eminent names could be cited as authorities for these various
hypotheses.

I follow the method already outlined, and invite examina-
tion of certain outstanding facts, before passing to consider
what men have thought about them. The umpire in each
case must be the reader’s own intelligent judgement. Doth
not the ear try words as the mouth tasteth meat? We look
for our facts in the most likely place, namely, in the Book
of Psalms. Some of these, as the alphabetical psalms and
the pilgrim psalms of Book V, and all the psalms of Book I,
have been so fought over in metrical contests that the smoke
of battle might obscure their natural scansion. We turn,
then, to the middle books, and since criticism must start
from the received text, we will take it as it stands, for the
present, reading for the sense as we would read a passage

B 2
4 Systems of Hebrew Metre

of Shakespeare; that is to say, pronouncing it like prose, in
the main, and giving to the various words and clauses such
emphasis, or lack of it, as will serve to bring out most clearly
the author’s meaning. We have no concern with the so-
called poetical accents, for our objective point is reading,
not cantillation. As to the most recent school of criticism,
represented in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, which changes the
received text very materially, however much it interests us,
we must maintain a neutral attitude, for we cannot fail to
perceive that the systems of Hebrew metre to be reviewed
have not built upon this foundation; indeed, there has not
been time, as yet, for such a connexion to manifest itself in
any considerable degree. But there is a fair justification for
the attempt to show to what extent the text, as fixed by the
Massoretes, possessed a metrical character; and as Lachmann
founded modern New Testament criticism by pursuing rigidly
the inquiry ‘What was the text of the fourth century?’ so
we may hope to further the study of Old Testament metrics
by confining attention at first to the Psalter as it has come
down to us. Let us begin with a few of the shortest Psalms,
54, 67, 82, 100, omitting 43, which belongs with 42, and also
53, which is practically equivalent to 14 in Book I.

Psalm 54.
- / 7 - , ,
agen Fnngia | eben Fows ovis
28 xd movin | nban yoy odes
portend anid wd xb | was wpa amin | “Sy ip ovis

> Ww

nN or

rar Sepa Sos | 9 ony obs nin
/ , 4 , / -
:oMvoyT ned | Maw yin awh

, , s / 7 ?
rad 13 nin jow row | nna nsiaa
Sy rin vhxn | Sun vty by vn

~
Inductive 5

It is earnestly enjoined upon the reader to depend upon
his ear even more than upon his eye; to practise reciting
the Psalms aloud until there is no hesitancy in pronouncing
the Hebrew. When that point is reached in the 54th Psalm,
it will be noticed that the poem flows smoothly and regularly.
The cesura separates each line into equal groups (stichoi) of
three feet?, marked in every case by three tones or accents,
two of these groups making a Massoretic verse, save that
verse 5 has three groups. In Ginsburg’s edition (London,
1894), whose text I follow throughout, each stichos has a
separate line. The movement within the group is from un-
accented to accented syllables. We should not use the term
iambic or anapaestic, as these relate to quantitative systems ;
such terms should be reserved for the highly organized poetry
of the ancient Greeks and Romans, whereas this psalm seems
to resemble modern poetry in moving from stress to stress,
the syllables having no constant value with reference to the

,
accent. Compare the consecutive syllables ‘5 and *9, wv. 4, 53
? ,
also ‘2 and ‘3, ver. 9; 5 ver. 4 with 5 ver. g. As the first

two verses constitute the (prose) title, we begin with ver. 3.
‘The scheme is as follows, letting x represent an unaccented
and ~ an accented syllable. Provisionally, though with.
a few exceptions, I consider as a syllable the vocal sh’va,
simple or compound; a disputed point, to which we shall
return later.

Ver. 3. Son JNM wy wean Jows onde
6 5 4 3 2 1
xtx x | tx x |+4x x || x4x x [4x x [4x x
6 5 4 3 2 1
Several things are worthy of notice here. First, the exact
correspondence, in every foot, of the two half verses; as
a geometer would say, if A is applied to 2, they coincide

1 It is convenient to retain this word (feet), if we understand it to
refer to metrical, not syllabic, divisions.
6 Systems of Hebrew Metre

throughout their whole extent. Second, the identical rime at
the end of the corresponding feet, 2 and 5. Third, the true
rime in 3 and 6. Fourth, the additional syllable occurring
at precisely the same point in 3 and 6. This last gives testi-
mony, as far as it goes, against the view that there is an
exact alternation of successive syllables, and in favour of the
view that Hebrew poetry was sometimes scanned like English
poetry. For the following represents precisely the form of the
Hebrew; or, if one takes the other side of the above ‘disputed
point,’ he is at liberty to omit the first word.
O my God, by thy name now redeem me,

Roe le we | me we ee |
1 2 3

And by all thine omnipotence free me.
Ke | ox xt[x x £ x
4 & 6

The rime is imperfect, though less perfect ones often occur
in our best poems. Every other metrical test is satisfied,
and. in the Hebrew the rime also is perfect. Those who
distinguish between rhythm and metre will have to admit
that the above comes under both heads. If the question
arises whether this may not be a case of accidental metre, we
should reflect on the large number of particulars that concur
to produce the result; we should remember too that the
Psalms are at all events poetical, whether or not we can
discover their poetical form; so that the matter is very dif-
ferent from an accidental hexameter in the New Testament,
for instance. To get a genuine parallel, we should imagine
the English distich just given to be found in a volume
of English poetry; every one would say that the metrical
form was intentional, even though it might differ from other
forms in its neighbourhood. We are ready now to pass to

Ver. 4. saved non ndan yew onde
6 5 4 3 2 1

~xl4+x|[x+txx|txxx |4+x« [4x x
6 5 4 3 2 1
Inductive 7

Note first the resemblances, then the differences. There are
six feet as before, and the one cesura comes in the middle.
The movement in each foot also is from weak to strong
tones, the accent falling mainly on the ultima. Here too
there is a perfect rime, and at the same point, the close
of the third and of the sixth foot, °N, ‘BD.

But the two halves do not coincide through their whole
extent. The second foot agrees with the fifth, but the first is
shorter than the fourth, while the third is longer than the
sixth. When we come to interpret such facts we must be
cautious, for too large inferences are drawn from them by
opposite schools, the one claiming that the attempt to find
metre has failed, the other that it is vindicated, since only
the tones are to be counted, not the toneless syllables. We
must carry our induction much farther before it will bear
the weight of either of these general statements.

Ver. 5. WEI WP OY by yop om %3
6 5 4 3 2 1

se wit = = af i
ex ltxw | 2x ue ex |e [2x x

som obs wey xd
9 8 7

txx |txx | x+4x |]
9 8 7
Here are two cesuras, dividing the nine feet into three threes,
each foot as before bearing one accent. But the variations
are growing. ‘Two novelties appear; what corresponds to
a trochee in the second foot, and to an amphibrach in the
seventh, though we must avoid those terms. The accent
at the close of the first foot is immediately followed by
one at the beginning of the second. Such a consecution of
accents is a thing so abhorrent to some metricians that they
change the text regularly to avoid it. We simply note the
fact without comment at present. The verse contains no
8 Systems of Hebrew Metre

rime, the vowels in 3 and 6 being different; both vowels
and consonants in 9 differ from 3 and 6. If the three feet
are laid over each other, they should coincide as follows:
1 with 4 and 7, 2 with 5 and 8, 3 with 6 and g. Only
one out of these nine expected coincidences occurs, namely
3 with 6. Once more it will be averred that the evidence
is eight to one against any metre here; and once more it
will be replied that the thing measured may be tones or
times instead of syllables, and that rime is only occasional
and accidental.

Ver. 6. wea sppa eS ty ons mn
6 5 4 3 2 1
tx{txxx|txxifl[txx|txx [+x
6 5 4 3 2 1

The rime has returned, and in the same place, », w’. Also,
the cesura separates the two three-toned groups, with each
foot accented at the end. On the other hand, not a single foot
corresponds syllabically to its mate; 1 < 4,2 < 5,3 > 6.
Our induction is leading us to discard the syllable as a unit
of measure, provided we regard the psalm as metrical at all.

Ver. 4. rompyn qnoxa ssw yin aw
6 5 4 3 2 1

Z

aX

x | txxx | + i|tx«xx | 4x | 4x

5 4 3 2 1
A very rough specimen. Not only is this verse like the
previous one in that all the correspondences fail, but the
fourth foot consists of a single accented syllable, and that
very accent immediately follows another accent; although, to
be sure, the strong pause of the cesura intervenes, Whether
such peculiarities are fatal to the metrical character of the
poem is a fair question.

Ver. 8. OTD TD Pow ATK abennsI ADD
6 5 4 3 2 1

tx |[tx|[txxsx ||t| «x4 ],x«4x
Inductive 9

For the third time in succession all the correspondences fail ;
the line is even rougher than its predecessor. Of the six feet,
not one is the same in syllabic character with any foot in the
model ver. 3. Yet it may be that the verses agree metrically
in more important respects than those in which they differ.
Patient investigation must be the watchword still.

Ver.9. 9 *)y ANN Na V5yA AM SoD 1D
6 5 4 3 2 1
Ax | txx | txxx |lxtxx [4x | +x x

The form here comes very close to that in ver. 4; two
transpositions make it precisely the same. But again the
correspondences all fail when the two halves are applied to
each other. We must not lose sight of the fact, however,
that every verse in the psalm is like every other in these
particulars: (a) the number of feet is a multiple of 3; (4)
there is a cesura at every third foot; (c) the general move-
ment, musically regarded, is triple time, not double or
quadruple (this refers to the inner structure of the foot, not
to the number of feet in a stichos); (¢) the time occupied
in pronouncing each foot is either exactly or approximately
the same, we will not as yet decide which.

Now that we have gone through the whole psalm, it is
proper to institute the general inquiry whether parallels for
the variations we have found may be discovered among
the poets in good and regular standing in our own literature.
These variations may be classed as follows. (As we are dealing
chiefly with English, we will read hereafter from left to right.)

Taking x x -4 as the normal foot, we find seven differences
which I will give in the order of their occurrence.

(1) xxx. (2) x4 (3) xx xt. (4) 4x.
(5) x 4x. (6) +. (7) £x x.

Five of these seven appear in one of the most exquisite
Io Systems of Hebrew Metre

short poems in our language, familiar and precious to all of
English stock.
I Break, break, break,
On thy cold, gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay !

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

13 Break, break, break,

14 At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

13 But the tender grace of a day that is dead
16 Will never come back to me.

ow csr Atm Rw D

om
ne

Of these sixteen lines, all are in triple time, and all
have three feet, except 11 and 15, which have four. The
typical foot is that of our psalm, x x ~, which occurs four
times in the first stanza; typical lines are 8 and 12, whose
feet are wholly of this form. But the first variation, x x + x,
is plainly found in line 6:

with hts stster at play
not with his sts -ter at play.
Line 5, too, reads more smoothly thus:

Sor the fisher — -man's boy,
than thus : Jor the fish -erman's boy.
One more case is in line 10:

to their haven’.

* If it is objected that the syllable-count remains the same in the three
ires last quoted, however they are divided, whereas x x -2 x in Ps, 54. 3
Inductive II

No. 2, x ~, is very common; twice each in lines 2, 4, 5,
7, 9, 11, 16. Wherever in English poetry we meet the foot
x x ~4, we are apt to find mingled with it x4. No. 4,4,
occurs in line 10 (under); No. 5, x-4x, in lines 3 (could
ulfer) and 16 (wll never); No. 6, ~, in lines 1 and 13.

Although No. 3, x x x -4, and No. 7, 4 x x, are not
found in the brief compass of this poem, they are present in
other poems of Tennyson; in fact, they occur at all periods
of our literature. Thus in the Charge of the Light Brigade:

All in the valley of death,

4x xi[_xxx +4
which is utterly misconceived when its galloping movement is
exchanged for this :

All in the valley of death.

4x{|x 4x | x
The Old English was fond of this resolution of three
syllables into four.

The Fight at Maldon (end of tenth centufy, author un-
known), is a very spirited poem, with variations similar to
those we have found in the 54th Psalm. A few lines
follow :

Byrhtnoth mathelode, bord hafenode,
wand wacne SC, wordum melde,

yrre and anred, ageaf him andsware :
Gehyrst thu, setlida, hwet this folc segeth ?
Hi willath eow to gafole garas syllan
settrene ord and ealde swurd.

gives an extra syllable, the point is not well taken. For the rhythm
before us (if line 8 is made to correspond) would permit a variation
like this in line 6:

That he shouts on the beach with his séster,
and then the two lines would be the exact syllabic equivalents of the
two in Ps. 54. 3.
12 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Byrhtnoth replied, his buckler uplifted,
Waved his slim spear, with words he spake,
Angry and firm gave answer to him.
Hear’st thou, seafarer, what saith this folk?
They will for tribute spear-shafts you pay,
Poisonous points and trusty swords.

(Prof. Garnett’s translation, Baltimore, 1901.)

It cannot be necessary to accumulate evidence of apparent
irregularities of form, which, like musical discords, are taken
up into a higher harmony, and this at all periods of English
literature. A single specimen from Shakespeare may suffice,
though scores might be given.

To have no screen between the part he played

And him he played it for, he needs will be

Absolute Milan. Me, poor man! my library

Was dukedom large enough. Of temporal royalties

He thinks me now incapable; confederates

(So dry he was for sway) wi’ the King of Naples.

The Tempest, i. 2. 107-112.

Note that the first two lines follow precisely the regular
scheme, x ~4, while the other four present the most complex
deviations: 4 x, x 4x,4, x £xx,4xx,x x +. The
resemblance to those in the psalm is striking; six of the seven
varieties which are here are also there.

Although caution is as needful on the English as on the
Hebrew side, still the weight of evidence appears to favour
the claim that the 54th Psalm, in the Massoretic recension,
bears all the tests which are properly applicable to English
verse. It is poetical, rhythmical, metrical.

Psalm 67.
Hohe wa we | wSaan win» obs 2
4 , / , , /
2 TAM! pM 553 | F317 paws nyt 5
, , , y , ,
1092 DY PN | OPN DY 4A 4
Inductive 13

,
: oman pas oveds | ode ody sen v3 | odd aon afoe
, , a 4 7 ,

ros ody qr | ovtbe ody gry 6

/ , , , 7 ,
pirmbs mvs wS9a | adi nina pas

4, , / a / a

PPT DBR DS | anne IM | DAN SAI g

There are some close correspondences with Psalm 54.
Assonance and rime are frequent: ver. 2, 93,130; ver. 3,
72, 19; vw. 4, 5, 6, OM, OWI; ver. 7, 33, 3. Each psalm
has seven metrical verses; as a rule, with one cesura in
the middle; but in both psalms ver. 5 has two cesuras and
extends to nine feet. All the other verses in both psalms
have six feet. The movement also is in triple time through-
out. In the last verse of 67, we have the pleasing variation
with two cesuras, 2+2+2= 3+3. Some would make no
change here, simply suspending the voice after Na™, cf.
Budde on Isa. 14 in ZA 7W., 1882 (Art.1). But in reading
for the sense, we do well to note such variations. The effect
is similar to the following transposition in English:

And I would that my tongue ll
Could utter { the. thoughts ll

That arise in me.
(2+24+2=343,)

On the whole, this psalm is more regular than 54. The
only changes from the type x x which a rigid scrutiny
can discover are these: (1) x, (2) 4x, (3) xx, (4)
x x£x, (5) x x x4, (6) x x x4x. It will be seen at
a glance, and yet more plainly by becoming familiar with the
psalm, that this is a natural development ; indeed, in several
of these cases, many readers would prefer to follow the
type. No. 1, as we have seen, is of constant occurrence in
English verse of this kind. No. 2 scarcely differs, for it is
14 Systems of Hebrew Metre

simply the segholate pox which Sievers supposes to have
been often accented on the ultima. However this may be,
our own blank verse is constantly interchanging x + and
+x. Nos. 3, 4, 5 we found in Psalm 54. As to No. 6,
it is pertinent to remark that a hemistich in Old English
may have an anacrusis extending sometimes to several
syllables.

No one ought to deny that the evidence for a true metre
in the Hebrew Psalms is much strengthened by the existence
of a second psalm that answers all the tests of English
metre. We are far from asserting that a// the psalms are
metrical; that is a very different statement.

Psalm 82.
/ , a, , , ,
PDBW OVID anpS | DX aya av DDN +
7 7, / - LK
nxwn yen Yer | ap weawn Ap wy 2
, , c i De Ee:
ppyiyn wih yy | om OF aw 5
ridin moyen a | ptr St dba ,
£98 stow d3 reds | Shiny nswnd | nd eh ae xd 5
1553 jHby sSay | ore ortdes snobs oe 6
/ - , / 7 ,
208m Mw srigst | prion pwd 73N 7
, ,
rohan 53a Sron ars» | pakn ndaw obs vip

Here is our regular 34+ 3 measure, exchanged in the last
verse for 4+ 4, after the manner of an English Alexandrine.
It is a mere coincidence, but a singular one, that once
more, as in 54 and 67, the fifth verse, and that alone, has
3+3+3 tones. It will be asked why I have accented
3OBYN (ver. 2) on the first syllable, but 82Y (ver. 3) on
the last. The answer brings out a delicate point in word-
grouping. Besides the main cesura in each line, there is
Inductive 15

a slight subordinate pause in the stichos, to separate the
lesser groups. In ver. 2, bry is more closely connected with
the verb than ‘ND is; but if we were to say by {pewn, it
would necessitate a slight pause between the two accents;
hence we make the pause after ‘M2, and throw back the tone
of the verb by the figure called #es#ga. On the other hand,
in ver. 3, 27 is less closely connected with the verb than
with its fellow object (one of many facts which show how
little reliance can be placed on Makkeph) ; hence the accents
can stand in their regular places. The metrical type in
this psalm, as in the others, is x x-4; the variations are
more numerous, but are easily accounted for. They include
the eight we have had before and one other, x 4 x x
(ver. 5, vow b3), The same kind of foot occurs in the

selection from Shakespeare’s Zempest (my library).

Psalm 100.
? , ,
tpaxn ba nimd ein x

/ o /, , s J
pniina web wd | ariows nia ne vay »

, , , - , , / / 7
Pyro peat Sy [yandie dy vawy ane Ov aa At wT 3

, , , , ae , / ,
rdw yaa i> yi | ndnna wAyn | wha wiyw ww
, , 4 , Ke I /

Piva TIF Wy | von Dad | nin 318°

The general resemblance to the three preceding psalms
we have examined is manifest. The peculiarities are as
follows. Ver. 1 consists of a single stichos of three feet
in triple measure; there is no balancing group; we might
regard it as a title. Vv. 3 and 4 have each two cesuras,
giving 3+3+3 tones; ver. 5 has two, giving 2+2+3
tones, or a 7-toned line. This we shall often meet again.
Already there is becoming apparent a tendency to lengthen
the last verse of a psalm. So far as the foot measure is
16 Systems of Hebrew Metre

concerned, the deviations from the norm x x ~ were all found
in Psalm 54, viz. (1) x4x, (2)xx+4x, (3) x4, (4) 4x,
(5) x x x-4, (6) 4. There are several apparently intentional
rimes, some of which, however, may be accidental. Ver. 2,
nm and 39; ver. 3, 1) and 3n; ver. 4, 7 and nd, 1 and 19;
ver. 5, 1 and n.

Summing up results thus far, we have found in the three
middle books of the Psalter a few short psalms, which are
metrical in form, and characterized by the triple rhythm that
has always prevailed in English verse. These psalms com-
pare well as to regularity of scansion with much of our best
English poetry. We. must now go back and see if the same
thing is true of longer poems.

Psalm 94.
:yrnn mips bx | nity mips dk x
, 4 a, 4 # ,
rea by Syd avn | pak Dey xv
4 - a 7 7 #
indy Oyen nip sy | af oven rin 3
rie syd ba vioxm | pry mats,
,
rap fndnh jwoy vin joys
7
rings pin’ | tne ah vbnds 6
apy wbx poy xd] av me aS vow 7
nbsen rip od on | nya o‘yawd 9s
, , ,
292) NOT PY yy ow | yer eda ne yoo
¥ ,
ryt pa bon | my abn pha. 10
‘ Jy y , ac, ¥. v
$34 nos j DIN mawAD | YAY ay
,
natmen Frain | AY apn wwe | Tain vers

rnin yénd ntaysy | wind 1d ewnd 1,
Inductive 17

sayy xd wfbnit | wy nine wrt xb 3 14

ra mw do wine | mewn aw pax wy 9 rs

£18 voy8 py 9% oxime sy | ph py *d pips 9 16

PWEI mort maw oyna | *> nth min whid sy

px4ypy nin Jton | sin née “tone De ig

sepa Weyer qdinon | Sopa Einw 343. 1

spn sdy Séy ays | niin edd Shamn 20

sw Ps of | pris wed by oni ar

rn WS vAbsa | afend 9’ min sm a2

nasa nny ory’ | privy onynas | oh ne oreby sent a5

The type is xx as before, with the scheme 3+ 3,
remarkably regular, except that here also the last verse is
lengthened (3+3+3), and that in the middle, ver. 11
is 2+2+2, ver. 12, 2+3+3. Inasmuch as the book
of Psalms has come down to us through long generations
of copyists who were utterly ignorant of metrical form, it
is certainly surprising that twenty-one out of these twenty-
three verses are in perfect threes. The candid reader must
acknowledge by this time that chance could not have pro-
duced such a result. Suppose we hereafter find a multitude
of poems in the Old Testament that defy all metrical laws,
this cannot alter the fact that we have found others which
would be recognized in any language as real poetry. In
Psalm 94, the various forms of feet which differ from the
norm are exactly the same as in Psalm 82, except that + x x
does not occur. <A specimen of each follows:

(1) xx x4 ver. 4, aT
(2) xxx +x ver. g, JIN youn
(3) x x4x ver. 3, wdy

coBB Cc
18 Systems of Hebrew Metre

(4) x4xx ver. 4, bye bp
(5) x4x ver. 2, yasn

(6) x+ ver. I, mn
(7) 4 ver. I, by
(8) 4x ver. 8, ma

Let us make assurance doubly sure by a few more
examples.
Psalm 91.
rptbny ste S¥a | py anda seh
, / , ia , 7?
13 MBAN bx | AyD) ‘on | mim ON
, , Q, , tf -
rnin aI | wipy nap | Py Nia 3
, , , , i /, / , ,
fn Aan: Ady | monn was nm | 75 yoy waka,
z / / , , ,
roo my pro |Add snap wen xd.
, , , SP ‘i , a
rpviny Ww app | bay Saxo at 6
, , / y - 7 , , , ,
swe xd poe | qm nso] abs pp bay
- 7 , 4 Zz ,
Axon oye nodes | oan pea pos
, sf , , ,
Pyayo now py | ‘ond mM AN 1D»
, , v , , ,
rasa spy xd yin | avs pote mien xd 10
ran $52 fanwd | qb awe woebp 9S
/ , , , , y
37 jaa Ayn yp | Jandy orb by 12
a , , , 7 7
rpm BD pan | Tn indy nv by 1,
, , , tr , ,
iw yo sa anaes | nddass pun 31 14
a, / , - , , - 7 ,
smaaey inydne | iva sSae Oy | andy 02h) NPY 75

y / y , , ,
SYD WAN) | NAN DD TWN 16
Inductive 19

This is in 3+ 3 measure, wv. 2, 3 having the equivalent
2+2+2. Invv.4,7,15 the scheme is 3 + 3 + 3, but of course
this only emphasizes the measure. The whole psalm should
be read aloud often to appreciate its wonderful smoothness ;
only in ver. 15 ‘IN seems to have fallen out before inoyx,
owing to the ‘38 at the end of the previous word.

The deviations in this psalm from x x are these: (1) x4,

(2) x x x 4, (3) 4 x, (4) 4, (8) x 4 x, (6) 4x x, (7) x x 4x,
(8) x xxx. They are the same in number as those in
Psalm 94, and almost the same in character.

Psalm 85.
, 4 , , , ,
:apy mw nav | as may ny
, , / / , 7
ronwen 55 moa | Jey jy new 5
, , / 4 / /
ifs ino mvdwn | qrnay 55 nex 4
, 7 , , J ,
ry Joys hm | wwe nbs ww
ry ad Sex qn (23 Aawh adiydr 6
? 77 , vc ,
£78 nowt Jom jan awn nns xbn 7
- , 7 , 7 ,
iS inh yyes | Ton aay wR s
ber dy Se oir att va | avy ben ad np nyows 9
- -, , ,
rmdpad raw dev] etn
, J 7 - 7? Pe
Pana TID 75w> | wer ywrd arp Tk ro
? - / , , ,
sypda odin poy | wip noe TOM rr
rape DewD ph | noyn pak noe 2
pnbray phn wasn | andr pny avn Ba 73

sydyp > pve | bar wind prt 14
C2
20 Systems of Hebrew Metre

This is another psalm of very even flow, with but a single
exception; in ver. 9 mn and DN bxy disturb the rhythm
and give the abnormal line 4+4+3. Also they look like
editorial expansions. Remove these words and the whole
moves on without a break (ver. 9, 3+3+3; all the rest
3+ 3). But we are not yet authorized to make such changes
for metrical convenience; it may be that the poet chose the
variety. Compare lines 11 and 1g of ‘ Break, break, break.’

Psalm 85 has the same permutations of the foot to which
we are becoming accustomed; ver. 2, x+x, x4, 4x;
ver. 3 (additional), 4; ver. 4, xx~4x; ver. 6, xxx;
ver. 7, 4x x: only seven in all.

The numerous rimes near the beginning are seen to
be merely the effect of the ending J as addressed to the
Divine being; a similar explanation holds in many other
cases.

Psalm 81.
rapy ided ayo |p why ovtded won
rad py oa aa | an unt mnt we 3
, , Bo yor
Man pY> mDd3 | Mew wana wen 4
rapy Abed mien | xin Semen piv;
, vy a, 7, / 7 , ,
‘ny? ND nBy | OND pos by oneya | ww ADIs ny 6
your
7 , 4 , / ay
rmanayn yin yS> | wow Sado npn
, 4 , / , , v , ,
:ngm 1 Sy jana | oy anda ys | 78dmy esp mova
- , - , , ,
2) YOwN ox dewey | 72 mh wy wer
,
2953 xb nine why | of be 73 ata xd 10
, , ,
HAWORTH ana | ayn pre fda | tbe nine Soe ay
Inductive 21

8 nak xd deem | Spd sty yde whi i
sSremyania 1559) 3b nrwa wnnbem 13
sabre Sona ber | o> vbw ody Yay

a, 4 to a 4 4
imp ade oimy dyn | ox ofan wii 13
ibys pry fm | xb wna: nth sown 16
iphawe wit onfoy | abn aban inttown 17

Three-tone measure throughout, but in three cases, unless _
the text is wrong, we have to crowd into a single foot the form
x x x x-4x, which seems like taking an unpoetical licence.
One case is in ver. 8, sony), another in ver. 13, inden,
and the third in ver. 17, nd‘oN. Everything else is regular,
and presents the variations already considered. Vv. 6, 8, 11
are 3+3+43; the rest are 3 + 3.

We come next upon a different metrical scheme.

Psalm 46.

pax xia nviya any | wh dnp nd obs a

rod) 383 oir prion | pak wna wha xb by
/ 7 , a, 4 c ,

famed Oh way | edi anton adh»

7 ao , , , , ,

iby Yow wip | Dvibe Ty ow bp aa

nA wn sr

rp maa ovids: n4ny | evan 53 ndnps ovibe
4 a, , , 7 a, , 4
spas adn wbipa ina | mado wo ova wn

~y

rapy Abs ww awd | ody mxay nihy 9g
a, , , 7 a. a, ,
rpaNa my oy awe | nin mya ww 139g
, s 7, , , a, a - b ,
mibay | nin ySpr den vp | pANn nyp sw MroND Nw 10
POND ATR
22 Systems of Hebrew Metre
4, ,
Pp983 Orie Da ovis | Ovid wae oD Wa a
sappy vAbse ab! awd | dy may afar 1
This is unmistakably written in fours instead of in threes.
The latter occasionally break in, but the prevailing foot is
4+ 4, and in ver. 10 it is 4+4+3, the very form that gave

us trouble in Psalm 85. As this is the first occurrence of
the 4-tone rhythm, I will present it by verses :

Ver. 2,444. Ver. 3,444.
4,344. 5» 4+ 3.
6,4+4. 1444.
8,344. 9,44 3.
10,4+4+ 3. 11, 4+4.
12, 3+4.

Every versé has at least one 4-tone, and most of them
have two. Note also the regular alternation of 3+ 4 with
4+ 3. There is less variation within the foot than we found
in the psalms written in threes. The greater part of the
feet are x x 4 or x +, and there are no new irregularities.

Psaim 53.
rad ney px Sy sana inerien | ody ps 1463 S43 de 2
a y ao , , , #
wir Dw wn misnd | ota by awn ondwn obey
:omoN nN
rane pa px ad ney px | india vine 35 5 4
rep xb onde: | ond box ody Yow | ne byb aot xbn 5
jn nydyy tp ody oa | nd mA xd and vind ow 6
pono ods 13 Anénan
7 , , , ¥ a * -
| yoy mae one awa | bee myer py yr on »
b&w miber aby bis
Inductive 23

As I have already irtaplied, this psalm has suffered from
the existence of another recension, namely, Psalm 14. And

yet the rhythmic division is clear, and for the most part
smooth.

Ver. 2, 4+ 4. Ver. 3,444.
4,444. 544443.
6,4+443. D4t4t+4.

In the opening verses, one has to hurry the time occasionally,
and yet. there are only two or three occurrences of x x x 4,
and one of xxxx+4. Worse things we have already
passed.

Psalm 96.
ay a , , , a a
span 53 mind wow | wan we aid rw
, I , av , J 7 ,
pina ov ovo wa | oe vdna nid mew
rpmdes ovbyn $42 | yaa pf rap
rovabs: 55. Sy sat way | at S5her afar by4a 3
rmdy ovo nin | odie ondyn vibe 53 19
, 7 a, , 4 , 4
pwepoa nosany w | pied nim sin
, , - - , av /, ,
rif naa niiyd adn | ody mipen ntind ada
, a tv , 7 a, / ,
rynrand wah arta we | wy nia aim wins
,
rash 53 moo wv | ep nai nin wnnwn 9
. ,
prey p> | evn b3 Sci pan AN | Wp mh Disa ye 10
Does
ibot mv psy | pan bin aden view a
7 a ,
ray uy 5S why we p13 tes 5S te Oy i
7 f
ban phen prism ded | xo 12 M2 1D | mi ved 13
, SP
sritona Brey | pava

nA nan ® W WN

wT
24 Systems of Hebrew Metre

This fine psalm is in regular 4-tone measure with very
few exceptions. An objector naturally fastens on the two or
three exceptions, but every one with a musical ear who will
read this poem aloud cannot help seeing that the 4+ 4
movement (4-tone rhythm) is of the very essence of the
poet’s intent. The last verse, following the tendency before
noticed, is an Alexandrine, with the measure 6+6. In the
other twelve verses there are twenty-two quadruple groups,
and only three triple groups, namely, wv. 3a, 5b, 6a.

Within the foot itself are the following varieties: (1) + x,
(2) x x4, (3) 4, (4) x4, (5) x 4x, (6) x x x4, (7) x x 4x.
Here, then, as just before, we find plainer sailing than in
most of the psalms we have examined.

I have now adduced three poems in fours from the three
middle books of the Psalter. It is true that this combination
of feet is much less common than that by threes, but the
two are often mingled. In English verse, both are frequent.
The Fight at Maldon has already been cited. I will mention
two others in 4-tone rhythm; first, Lady Anne Barnard’s
classic ballad of Auld Robin Gray, composed in 1771. The
first and fifth stanzas will suffice to show the general move-
ment and the various kinds of feet.

, 4 , ,
When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame,
, ,
And a’ the warld to sleep are gane;
, , ,
The waes o’ my heart fa’ in showers fra’ my ee,

When my gudeman lies sound by me.

Ps. cot O25 , , ,
My heart it said nay, for I looked for Jamie back;
But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack ;

The ship it was a wrack—why didna Jamie dee?

Or why do { live to say, Wae’s me?
Inductive 25

This yields six varieties of feet, given here in the order of
their first occurrence: (1) x x 2x, (2) x x4, (3) x4, (4)
+x, (5) x x x + (it was a wrack), (6) x4 x (why didna).

The other example, from Jean Ingelow, has quite a
different swing, being not only written in 4-tone measure,
but in quadruple rhythm ; each of the four feet in a line con-
sists of four beats, while the number of syllables in a foot
varies from one to five. I give two stanzas of the poem:

Like a Laverock in the Lift.
It’s we two, it’s we two, it’s we two for aye,
All the world and we two, and Heaven be our stay.
Like a laverock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride!
Alf the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side.

When the darker days come, and no sun will shine,
Thou shalt dry my tears, lass, and ri dry thine.
It’s we two, it’s we two, while the world’s away,
Sitting by the golden sheaves on our wedding day.

This is so metrical and symmetrical that a good reader
would take the same time for the enunciation of each foot;
and yet the feet are so diverse that the four feet of line 3
contain respectively 5, 3, 4, 1 syllables, and those of line 6
have 4, 3, 2, I.

Leaving now these purely ternary and quaternary schemes,
we find that both in English and in Hebrew a line is fre-
quently composite, having 4+ 3 tones, sometimes in the
opposite order 3+ 4; or to look at it in another light, a
4-toned line is followed or preceded by a 3-toned line.
English usage sometimes prints the whole in one line, oftener
in two. An example of the former is Mrs. Hemans’s Bernardo

del Carpio:
26 Systems of Hebrew Metre

1 2 3 4 5 . 6 7
The warrior bowed his crested head and tamed his heart of fire,
7
And sued the haughty king to free his long imprisoned sire.

When the seven tones appear in two lines, we have the
‘common metre’ of our hymns; for instance, the noble hymn
by Henry Kirke White, which begins:

The Lord our God is full of might ;
The winds obey his will;

He speaks,—and in his heavenly height
The rolling sun stands still.

On the Hebrew side, we have already noted the closing line
of the rooth Psalm:

pinaex aT ay | mon nbdyd may aw 15
Also the alternations in Ps. 46, vv. 4, 5, 8,9, where we
have (twice repeated) the scheme 3+ 4, 4+ 3. Sometimes
three or more Massoretic verses in succession are written in
this 7-toned rhythm: e.g. Ps. 44. 19-21; 47. 2-45 105.
1-3. I do not find any whole psalm composed in this
measure; the nearest approach to it is
Psalm 58.
, , , , 7 q 4,
DIN 2 Wa Bw | PAIN pay ox DION 2
rpddan pS pin pasa | nbyan nw adt as 3
, , 7 , , 4 a
$373 7 fH3ap ayn | and DYyws Mt 4
, , , 7 , ay 4
PUI DON’ WIN IN| ws | wa non mot wd non 5
,
ron pvan vain | pwnd» bib poor xb wr 6
,
rnin yaa apps myindn | wrt wy Sn obs

r5mn» wa wn hy | wh saben ond ws wren
Inductive 27
rene wnt ba nek Sef) soar per bibsw wo
poten prin wo of wo | we ony wh onda ro
ryan pws pry yoye | ops mn oy pty nde ar
Py08s ondew ove w qe | peiyd Me qe ote od re

If we follow the received text strictly, six verses of this psalm
are 7-toned, but it is tempting to omit nym at the end of
ver. 7, since n’nbx begins the verse; this gives seven verses
out of eleven, six of the seven being consecutive. Each
foot is equivalent in time to every other.

I would not assert that in all poems each foot has the
same time. To illustrate, take another verse from Bernardo
del Carpio:

Thou canst not ?—and a king !—his dust be mountains
on thy head.

A reader who has learned the art of expression will
pause after the words ‘not’ and ‘king,’ and will deliver the
last words of the line more slowly than the first words.
Sidney Lanier in his excellent work on Zhe Science of English
Verse (New York, 1880), from which several of my examples
are taken, proves that silences—equivalent to musical rests—
are as integral parts of the time as sounds; but he insists that
all feet are equal in time value. We must remember, how-
ever, that even music knows not only rests but holds, which
theoretically disturb the rhythm, and yet are of great practical
importance.

Another composite line, and a very popular one in Hebrew,
has five tones; either 3+2 or 2+ 3. Ido not know that it
occurs in the best English poetry ; our so-called pentameters
are structurally very different. This is the 4”d@ measure
that prevails in the Lamentations; I have referred to it in
28 Systems of Hebrew Metre
the Introduction. However, it is not always pitched in the
minor key, for a typical example is Ps. 19. 8 ff., where twelve
such lines occur in succession. We find several others at
the beginning of the middle books of the Psalter.
Psalms 42, 43.
, , -, , ay , y 7
rvaby pox syn Wea yo | ond spree by styn S89 2
rorndss ap mda nae io | orf Syd ovtbyd wea axoy 3
jowh 52 Se ada yabdt ody | ond orion aria 4
ribs mv
, / , - ? 7 / ,
TY DTN | JOT Ty »3 |] war by mIavey | atom abe 5
, , , 7 - 7 ,
ran pon | atin: ads Sys yj obs m3
[rhe nay 12 ovtbyd denn || sSy chim | wea riminen ad 6
ip my
a
my yaw || fowe 73 Sy | nrinen wer Sy tbe y
"yD “Hp | Ovo
, t
| Pon paw $$ | phos bp | wip ovin bx avin g
imap “Sy
, ,
on xd aden | oy ate nbiddn | ton avy ate ody 9
a, , 4
PAM yndd | Jos Tp mB) | varinaw mdb | hp bx mow 20
, , , - , , , a 4
mx | OT 93°58 DONT || “ry ons | Araya ma
spade
"ny *> pvADND vberhyn |] 95H edn nds | wes imine md a
abe Sp nen | ote

now wep yon xb vio pd nde | ove ube
radban abn
Inductive 29

[ans ip mdb yp orinar nd | typ sabe are 2 2
rate pnba

bes | Jonp 74 Sa onteay | nny mort | fawn ow nde 5
i praws

sion fren | Se nrtow $8 bx | ody nto bx mene 4
be onde

wy 'D phone dyna oy oan ad | WE) ‘nminvn md s
rvbey dp mi | oie

Here are no less than eighteen 5-toned lines, many of
them consecutive. But mingled with these are other lines
of the scheme 4+ 4, or 3+ 3, or 2+2+2, and a few more.
One begins to realize the complications and perplexities of
every attempt to reduce the psalms, not to speak of the other
Hebrew poems, to metrical unity. But the difficulties have
only begun. I subjoin the schemes of three of the more
irregular psalms in the three middle books. It will not be
necessary to set down the Hebrew, which any one can verify
for himself.

Psalm 64.
Ver.2,4+4. Ver. 3,3+3. Ver.4,4+3. Ver.5,3+4.
6,44+3+3- W,5+4. 8,2+24+2.
9,3 +3. 10,5+2. 1I1,5+3.
Psaim 71.

Ver. 1,342. Ver. 2,3+4. Ver. 3,3+4+43.
4,443: 5, 244. 6,34+4+3.
7,342. 8,342. 9,444.
10, 3+ 4. II, 3+4. 12, 3+3.
13,4+5- 14, 3+3- 15,5 +3-
16, 44+ 3. 17,3 +3. 18, 5 +343.
19, 3+4. 20,5+2+4. ‘21,242.

22,545 23, 4+ 3. 24,444.
30 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Psaim 86.
Ver. Ver. Ver. Ver.
1,443. 2,4+*4+2. 3, 24+ 3. 4,3+4-
5 4+3. 6,3+4. 4,342. 8,442.
9,3+442. 10,443. II, 34+34+4. 12,3 +2+4.

13, 3+ 4 14,4+44+3. 15,444. 16, 3+3+3:
17,4+3+5.

What shall we say to these things? Surely we cannot continue
to say that English verse is parallel with Hebrew. Nothing
like this was ever written in English in the name of poetry,
unless by Walt Whitman. For my part, I have no explana-
tion to offer. My present object is accomplished in drawing
attention to the phenomena: we shall proceed to examine
whether they have ever been accounted for. If all the
poetry of the Hebrew Bible were stored in our memories, we
could point to nothing more metrically regular than are some
of the psalms which have been before us, and to nothing
less regular than are others of those psalms. But it would
be a mistake to suppose that the two classes are equal in
extent; the irregular poems greatly preponderate. I mention
a few more of the latter class—Psalms 45, 55, 62, 75, 79, 83,
84,95, 102. On the other hand, the following approach
regularity—Psalms 47, 66, 80, 90.

Great interest attaches to Ps. 80, first because it is clearly
strophical in form, and secondly because a few obvious
emendations clear up the metre.

Psalm 80.

, E , 7 , y, / I ,
PMY aA wy | AoW pR¥D at | moe kw mh 2
, , 2 , , / ?
maby | FAM nx Asay mor | pda omax ad ;

/ ,
1935" angend
, 7 , / ,
nya qa am | wwe ode 4
Inductive 31

, -
i yey ndena maby Ap sy | méay obs ain
,
serby miyona wpems | nor ond ondsan 6
2 aayd! rdun | riowd pio udwn
ihe 7 - / - /
IMRAN. PIP aX | wawn mway ovide g
7
inyom po ein | won meiyen JBI 9
7, t Fi , , y. A
rye xdiiny | mw we | mab mvp ro
tbe mk opdayn | nby on ws rr
, , , , , 4,
rmmpay A bey | af sy AM hyp ndon 3,
/ 4, 7 - a ,
S77 ay 53 mae | awa me nnd 1,
rap woh | aw an madonsy 1,
,
PTNY }B3 IPby | Nn oSwo oda | xa wy msay ode rs
, , / / , ,
292 nnyos 72 dyn | qi myws qe aor 16
May Pip nay | arios wa nbw yy
, , , 7 & /
yb nye aay yy | qo wes by te onn ig
/ , , 7 , ,
txts Jown nn | 70 183 wdh 16
, J , 7, y, , 4,
inyéan Ma ck | navn nixay aAbs athe 20

The nineteen verses, not reckoning the unmetrical title, make
forty-one lines, or stichoi, in the Massoretic divisions. But
ver. 16b is plainly a duplicate of 18b; no one can give
a good account of it as it stands. Striking this out, ver. 15
has three lines and ver. 16 one; both sense and balance are
preserved by putting the soph pasuk after 15 b, instead of.
15c. Thus the opening words of ver. 17 refer to the vine,
not to the unintelligible 32. Looking now at the forty lines,
it is noticeable that vv. 2 and 3 have three lines each, all the
others two lines each. It results that when a division is
32 Systems of Hebrew Metre

marked off at the end of every fourth Massoretic verse there
are precisely five sections of eight lines each, namely, vv. 2-4,
5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20, The first section ends thus
(Furness’s Wellhausen) :

Do thou restore us again, O God!
Let thy face shine, that we may be helped!

The second ends thus :
Do thou restore us again, O God Sabaoth!
Let thy face shine, that we may be helped!

The last is still more protracted :
Do thou restore us again, O Jahve, Lord Sabaoth!
Let thy face shine, that we may be helped!

The old view, that the refrain was purposely varied to reach
a climax, was never able to explain the fact that the climax,
*O Jahve! God Sabaoth!’ is already given in ver. 5. At
present it is a commonplace of criticism that nvnbx in these
verses is a late insertion either for or with mn. Since, then,
two of the three refrains are identical, and the idea of a
climax must be abandoned, there is every reason for reading
MNayY mM in ver. 4 also. And now when each section is
regarded by itself, it is seen to be a true strophe, devoted
to its own theme. Vv. 2-4 form a general supplication;
5-8 recite the present distress; g—12 contrast the former
prosperity ; 13-16 are an earnest expostulation and en-
treaty ; 17-20 sum up all that preceded.

It will be observed that this result has been reached
independently. But turning now to the metre, the surprising
fact comes out that every one of the forty stichoi is a perfect
3-toned line*. The slight changes made on other grounds
have brought this beautiful psalm into full metrical regularity.
But it has already been shown that the two psalms which
come next in the Psalter, 81 and 82, are also in regular

1 In verse 10, 2+2+2=3+3. In verse 15¢ read mun ypin.
Inductive 33

3-toned rhythm; these three psalms together make a three-
fold cord which is not quickly broken, even though they
stand in the midst of three others (79, 83, 84), which are but
weak threads when subjected to metrical tests.

The only other psalm thus far examined which has an
equally clear strophic structure is the double one 42-43,
where also the refrain is twice repeated, but the lines are
longer, mostly 4-toned, 5-toned, or 7-toned, and not so
regular. The poem is well arranged by Prof. Briggs (Study
of Holy Scripture, 1899, p. 410) in three strophes of twelve
lines each, including the refrain of three lines.

At the opening of this chapter all theories stood on an
equal footing; already some clues if not principles have
been gained which will serve in the main business of exam-
ining the various theories. If all Hebrew poetry is metrical
its metrical principles are not yet manifest, and are very
different, at all events, from those of English poetry. We
are sure, though, that it is not all non-metrical. It may be
more rhythmical than metrical—if any one can maintain such
a distinction. It is certainly strophic now and then, but it
is hard to believe that it is strophic entirely. Whether a
critical text, if ever gained, will be more metrical than the
Massoretic or less so is a point wholly undetermined. It
seems not to occur to those who handle this subject that
the alternate metrical smoothness and roughness of the
Hebrew poetry which has come down to us may be partly
due to the presence or absence of a feeling for rhythm among
the various editors and glossators who have worked over
the text. But this is an allowable hypothesis which must be
kept in view as we proceed. One thing is certain: no critic
has a right to say ‘the metre demands’ this or that change
unless his theory is broad enough and deep enough to take
in naturally and hold up easily such diversified facts as have
been brought out in our preliminary survey.

COBB D
34 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Signal instances of this petdtto prencipit are strown through
the recent commentaries of Duhm, whom Marti closely fol-
lows. Note in particular their frequent assumption that a
long line between short lines, or vice versa, ‘ disturbs the
metre,’ and so must be pruned or stretched. So far as our
present knowledge extends the poet may have designed that
very variety. For instance, 2 single 4+4 amid threes and
fives may excite suspicion, while a succession of such lines
may be intentional. See Ps. 142. 7; 143. 115; contrast
Ps, 144, 12-15.

In the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms Duhm
speaks, it is true, with becoming modesty, and professes to
know but in part. He also wishes us to take with a grain of
salt a minority of the metrical statements in the body of the
book, but this seems like an afterthought, since the assumed
metre is so often the foundation of the critical construction.
CHAPTER II
EARLY METRICAL SYSTEMS

Tuere is no advantage that I can discover in resurrecting
and laying to rest once more the theories of Gomarus,
Meibomius, Hare, and other ancients, which were pretty
thoroughly disposed of by Bishop Lowth, so far as they had
not disposed of one another. One might as well go back
to Josephus and Jerome. As in duty bound, I have examined
these systems, but am unable to find anything of vital
importance to present-day researches, The reader will be
interested in a single specimen of the stately Latin in which
these gladiators clothed their savage thrusts at one another.
Bishop Hare (p. 833) inserts Psalms 23, 95 according to
the metrical system of Meibomius, and then adds :—

‘Haec vero reliquaeque omnia quae vir doctissimus exhi-
buit, artis suae Metricis Specimine, hoc unum abunde probant,
de Metrica Hebraica se nihil quicquam intellexisse. Ad
singula nihil annoto, cuivis enim lectori, qui hanc cum Textu
Hebraico contulerit, primo intuitu patebit, quam foede omnia
turbarit, interpolarit, et corruperit.’

It is refreshing to place in contrast the language of Lowth
in his Brief Confutation of Bishop Hare's System of Hebrew
Metre.

‘I may reasonably indulge myself in the hope that the
candid reader will prefer my hypothesis to that of Bishop
Hare. This at least I trust I may expect, that he will treat
them upon equal terms, and allow to each the same authority,
that is—one af all, Inthe same manner, every hypothesis

D2
36 Systems of Hebrew Metre

which pretends to define the laws of Hebrew metre, and
to prescribe the numbers, the feet, the scanning of the lines,
may, I think, be easily overset; for to that hypothesis
another, directly contrary, yet confirmed by arguments equally
forcible, may, I am persuaded, be successfully opposed.’

Such was the verdict of the most enlightened scholarship
as voiced by Lowth in 1753, and thus it stood for sixty years
thereafter. The bibliography given at the close of this
treatise does not go back beyond the nineteenth century. But
in 1813 appeared a little book which opened a new epoch.

Johann Joachim Bellermann was born in 1754 at Erfurt,
where he became Professor of Theology in 1782. He after-
wards taught Hebrew at Berlin, and died in 1824. His
Versuch uber die Metrik der Hebriéer (Berlin, 1813) is a
small duodecimo of 276 pages, but its importance warrants
a full abstract. The preface justifies a fresh attack of the
problem (in spite of Lowth) by the parallel example of
Gesenius, who had just entered the field of Hebrew lexico-
graphy and proved that new spoils were to be gained there.
It also defends the general accuracy of the Massoretic
punctuation, which the author follows, against eighteenth-
century criticism.

Part I. Zhe Syllable and its Measures.

Chapter I is on the system of the morae, or units of time.
Each syllable contains (normally) three of these units, which
are preserved amid inflectional alterations by corresponding
ehanges in vowels and accents. The fundamental rule is
that every syllable without the tone has three morae; with
the tone it usually has three, but may have two or four.
A long vowel has two morae, a short vowel one, sh’va and
pattah furtive none. A consonant has one mora; and so
have two consonants with sh’va between. The vowel letters
have one mora if vocal, none if quiescent. Prefixed 4 in
Early Metrical Systems 37

a simple syllable stands for 1), and has three morae. Daghesh
forte compensative and metheg compensative have each oné
mora. The remainder of Chapter I treats of apparent diffi-
culties and objections to the system. These will come up
when we examine later writers on the subject. Chapter II,
on vocalizing and accenting, is similar to that rubric in
ordinary grammars.

Part Il. Zhe Verse and tts Members.

Each Hebrew word has but one long syllable, and this
has the tone. A disyllable therefore can neither have both
long nor both short, but by putting words after each other
a succession of either long or short syllables may be gained,
the latter by Makkeph. Thus we may have a two-syllable
foot (verse-member), which answers either to a classic
spondee, pyrrhic, trochee, or iambus; the last is much the
commonest, and accords with the genius of the Hebrew
tongue. A verse-member of three syllables corresponds
either to an anapaest, tribrach, amphibrach, or by putting
words together, to a dactyl, molossus, cretic, bacchius, or
anti-bacchius. (Other polysyllabic arrangements are given,
but are hardly worth mentioning.) The author’s aim is not
to have Hebrew scanned like Greek and Latin poetry, but
to show that it has szmz/ar measures, that it lends itself to
song, which we know accompanied it, and to song-like
declamation. The objection that this system would scan
prose as well as poetry, and the further objection that sh’va
ought to be vocalized, are then dealt with; this discussion
also must be deferred for the present,

Part II closes with some important qualifications. We
must not look for verse-systems like the Sapphic, Alcaic,
Asclepiad, &c. This is where Gomarus, Meibomius, Hare,
and Greve have gone astray. If we are to make any com-
parison with the classics, Hebrew poetry is more like the
38 Systems of Hebrew Metre

free compositions of the Greek tragedians, and of Pindar,
Plautus, and Terence, than like the odes of Horace. Unlike
classic poetry, Hebrew poetry generally fills out the sense
with each verse-number. As (so-called) iambi and ana-
paests alternate with trochees and tribrachs, the verses often
become composite (‘polyschematisch’). The Hebrew poet
looked more to the succession of his thoughts than to the
arrangement of his feet, and so we find many acatalectic
and hypercatalectic verses.

Part III. Zhe Song and tts Species.

ChapterI. Alphabetical songs. We take these first because
the length of each verse is practically fixed, thus avoiding
arbitrary construction of verses by addition or rejection.
The alphabetical lines are of great importance to the critic
in detecting errors. The shortest lines are best for that
purpose; hence we begin with Psalms 111, 112, in which
each half verse opens with a letter of the alphabet in due
succession. These psalms are in triple time and in 3-toned
measure, with an occasional 4-toned line; the type is x x ~4,
(x 4). Bellermann does not use these symbols, but his
terminology comes to the same thing. His scheme for
Psalm 112 is as follows:

Ver.

i xxt[x4]xx||xx«4]x+|+
2.xt|x4|xx4|x+|]4|[xx+4] x7

3. 4x [4x | xtilxx+4|«4| xx

4. x4|[x+|x+4|xx+4|_x4|x4|[ x4

5. xt[x4|xxt4ix+| x4] «+

6. 4|x4|[xx4l| 4x] x4] x4] x4

a, xxt|xt|[xxtlPx4+[ x4] x4] xx

8. x4] x+|xxt|lx4|«+| «4

9. x4[x+4|x+|x+|}xx+4|x+|xx4||x+|]x4| «+4
to, x4 |x+4|[x+|/x+[x+4[x+ x4] x4] x4
Early Metrical Systems 39

Here are twenty-two stichoi, the letters of the alphabet
coming regularly without a break. Seventeen of these are
3-toned, and five are 4-toned. The scheme is 3 + 3 (3 + 3 + 3),
with the following variations: vv. 2, 4, 4+3; vv. 6, 7,
3+4;3 ver.9,4+3+ 3. Within the foot, the correspondence
to the type would be much closer, if the author sounded
the sh’vas; he says this in so many words, in his remarks on
Psalm 111. ‘If one wished to express the sh’vas and the
pattah furtive by short vowels, or to permit himself some
other slight changes, the iambic feet in some hemistichs
would let themselves be recognized still more precisely.’

To illustrate: Bellermann makes monosyllables of IND,
sioa, nox, 52d, which we have hitherto read as disyllables.
The question whether he is right or wrong in this I defer
until we come to Saalschiitz’s criticism of him; but mean-
while it is evident that these two psalms embody the same
kind of metre that prevailed in those psalms of the three
middle books which we have denominated regular. The
‘iambic feet’ take the typical form x x-2 whenever they
begin with sh’va, and the general result is to put these two
short psalms in the same category with those upon which
we began experimenting, namely Psalms 54, 67, 80-82, &c.

The next alphabetic poem examined is Psalm 25. I quote
Bellermann’s capital remarks on ver. 1. ‘The word ‘bx,
which in the printed texts forms the first word of ver. 2,
belongs to ver. 1. Even then a foot seems to be missing,
perhaps mNa¥, perhaps something else, perhaps nothing,
since in solemn address not everything needs to be ordered
according to metre; or perhaps the basis of ver. 2 73
belongs to ver. 1; at any rate, the second verse preserves
its 3 in ‘nnoa. Now neither here nor in the following
passages do I venture as yet to take up anything different
from what the printed text gives. If the learned will
only come to an agreement with my main positions, we
40 Systems of Hebrew Metre

can pass on to emendations. To do it sooner, I consider
suspicious.’

Similarly thorough and satisfactory treatment is accorded
to Pss. 34, 37, 145; Prov. 31. 10-31; Lam. 1, 2, 3, 4.
On Lam. 3, the close of his Remark 2 sets a good example
to modern metrical critics; it resembles what has been
quoted already on Psalm 111: ‘By deviating from the text
in a few trifling points, one could represent the iambic metre
more accurately. I avoid this purposely so as not to have
the appearance of altering the Hebrew metre out of love
to my theory.’

Remark 5 anticipates Budde’s tnd verse (3+2); it has
been cited in the Introduction.

Assuming apparently that ‘the learned will come to an
agreement with his main positions,’ our author ‘ passes on to
emendations.’ He tries his hand on the double psalm 9-10,
which is only partly alphabetic in the received text, but
which he restores so skilfully, and by methods so modern,
that I am glad to lay open the process to the reader; all
the more readily, since it furnishes so good an example of
the aid which metrics may render to criticism. At the time
when Bellermann wrote, Prof. Everhard Schedius had hazarded
the conjecture that these two poems might form one and
the same alphabetical psalm, and Eichhorn had called
attention to that remark; but neither they nor any one else
had developed the conjecture; on the other hand, both
Rosenmiiller and De Wette had publicly contradicted it,
holding that the two poems did not belong together. At
the present day, most scholars attempt an alphabetical
arrangement, and differ among themselves in various details ;
but no one, so far as I know, has given credit to Bellermann
for his pioneer work. As the received text stands, the two
psalms contain thirty-eight Massoretic verses (omitting the
title, as usual). Ver. 2 begins with x, ver. 4 with 3, ver. 6
Early Metrical Systems 41

with 3. Whereas each letter opened a half verse in Psalms 111,
112, and a whole verse in Psalms 25, 34, 145, here, as in
Psalm 37, the plan seems to have been to give two verses
to each letter. But six of the required forty-four are wanting.

The matter grows worse as we proceed to trace the initial
letters. Ver. 8 has 1 not 3; ver. ro, } again, with m un+
accounted for; ver. 20 has p not 3. Chapter X. 1 begins
right with 5, but then all is dire confusion until we reach
Pp in ver. 12, three verses too soon. ‘ is in ver. 14 as it
should be, but w is in 15, not 16.

Bellermann begins by noting the fact that the LXX and
Vulgate, with their descendants, regard the psalms as one,
not two. This is also confirmed by the absence of a title
from Psalm 10, an almost unprecedented thing in Books I-
III. He suggests that some copyist may have been struck
by the sudden transition to the second part of the psalm,
and may have decided that a new psalm must begin at that
point; this MS. may have gained especial weight, and been
preserved as the Massoretic norm. Although only thirty-
eight verses appear, two of these, 10. 9, 14, are double the
usual length, whereby two lines are gained. Also 10. 3, 4, 5
are a little longer than the measuring-rod; between them
one line is gained. This leaves only three lines wanting.
The author, says Bellermann, was perhaps unable to finish
the scheme he had so nearly completed; and so the letters
1, 7, and 5 have one double stichos instead of two. We
will now follow Bellermann in his search for the missing
sheep. By his way of counting syllables, which excludes
sh’vas, ver. 8 lacks a syllable at the beginning, but this is
just where the 3 verse belongs; begin then with yt and
you have a 3+ line. In the received text, initial 1 may
be the remnant of this \y3. In Nin), at the beginning of
ver, 9, } is pleonastic, as often; the sense is stronger without
it; that leaves one verse for 7, as above.
42 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Now the letters 1, t, n, 0, °, 9 follow in order; a clear
proof that an acrostic was intended. Each has two Masso-~
retic verses, except that » has one, and 3 three; evidently,
then, there has been a transposition; one of the 3 verses
should follow ver. 18. Bellermann wavers between ver. 20
and ver. 21, favouring the latter in his notes, but putting the
former into his text.

Chapter X succeeds very naturally to Chapter IX, but after
the first verse we get into serious difficulties. At the
beginning of ver. 2, read 9 for 3; the logical connexion
is better so; not, 2” the pride of the wicked, but shrough
it, the poor is troubled; for this last word, see Gesenius’s
Lexicon. Thus the verse is secured, but the second
hemistich of ver. 3 is unusually long; putting soph pasuk
at the place where the metre calls for it, we find the next
word to be yx2. So we have gained the 3 verse, and better
sense at the same time; instead of having to import a
relative, ‘blesseth the covetous whom Jahve despiseth,’ we
read on into ver. 4: ‘blesseth the covetous. The wicked
despiseth Jahve.’

The 3 verse (3 + 3) extends to the a/hnah of ver. 4. Metre
is confirmed at this point by textual‘ criticism ; for the LXX
has precisely this division; beginning 9. 5 with mapdfvvev=
yi. For a further confirmation, see ver. 13: why does
the wicked despise God? yun yx). A fresh application
of Bellermann’s metrical yard-stick reaches to ny 59 in
ver. 5. The next word is py, but the LXX reads dvravai-
pera=O%D, which gives a better sense: ‘thy judgements
are removed from him.’ 0 is in its regular place here, and
two more double stichoi come out at the end of ver. 6.
y should come next, but we have the three precedents of
Lam. 2, 3, and 4 for the order b, 5, y. Naturally, ver. 7
would bring together the three objects of xbp thus: mp
nbx xbo, &c. The present order, beginning with nbx, is
Early Metrical Systems 43

more emphatic, and for that very reason is likely to be
due to a copyist. Beginning with \np, two lines (4+ 4 and
3 +3) lead to the athnah of ver. 8, and the next word con-
veniently begins with y; counting 3 +4 twice, we reach the
end of ver.9. The athnah clause of ver. 10 has only two
words; something is wanting at the beginning (cf. Wellhausen,
SBOT., ‘the verse is too short and is unsymmetrical’).
Bellermann conjectures “¥, making it the subject of the
verbs that follow; it is not necessary, with him, to include
bay. The scheme 3+ 4, 3+4 extends through ver. 11 and
past all the breakers into the quiet haven, for the four final
letters of the alphabet move on as regularly as one could
wish. On the last verse of the psalm, our author observes
with his wonted caution: ‘If one ventured to exscind my
the verse would be smoother; but I exscind it not.’

It may be interesting to compare Bellermann’s reconstruc-
tion of this double psalm with those of recent critics ; I there-
fore present it entire:

sphnadps 53 mips | 15 55a may The
qi , , 4 , ,
rb Jow avon | 73 nydyee anne

~_ Ww

spine van Seo | wie ne 313

v , v , 4 ,
:pr¥ paw nob navy | en dawn ny 19
sth Dbiyd nero ody | yon nods ofy maps

, Zz , , y ac , ,
rm oof Tax nena pyr | my%b meson wor aan y
rip pSdvnd pho | ad nbiyd nin PT) 8
a , , , wy , 7

romemna ovdnd pt | pra bSn pee wit g

Nn wo

nya my) sien | hd ale nine 3 10

, , , - , , , ,
rat ross nasty x9 93 | Jow shy 73 ea
pmrdssy osya moda | nfs ad ntind vt 12
44 Systems of Hebrew Metre
- / J , , - ,
soroy npyy nsw xd | 13t ore DT WITS 13
, , 4 - , , ,
md “yt yoann | kaw Noy MAN ANY 125907 14
Syhywna vdsie ve na pw | pandnn 53 mApow yd 15
pdin faba wade nt nents | wy nova pfs watd 16
, , , , , , , ,
1989 wer ye Sys | avy wwI MAY yD 17
pyiby iow pix 53 | nbiewd pier 12" 1s
, , 4 -, 7 4, y ,
95 sn pay nipn | pfax ndw md xb 93 ry
/ , , - , ? ,
spieb ofa ween | ends wt bye min nD 20
, - , , , , , ,
imo wae pha wy | Ad now Athy AN ar

, , ? , , , fy
pays mya Deyn | pra Wyn min mM? x
, S / , / lA ,
Hadn wy midis wane | wy ptr yw mi(ld) 2
1sqha yar wes | mast Sy pen Sawa 5
| wrhona 53 ovtby fx | ovine Sa wwe nda | yen thy yd 3-5
, , ,
iny daa pan ib
pia my winy 53 | wa poewn oAD(n) 5
sya NY owe ary ad | odes ba 1ba be 6
,
ney Sdy ated nny | oth ada abs abo im ,
tp x4’ pina | oviyn s4nna avg
| ey ardnd ate | nga nis ariopa se | bx nbd why

wo

, , , ,
ines ena Sy adm
,
pwddn wowyd | bon nd nda (8) 10

* This is perhaps a slip, There should be two cesuras, after yw
and Yr.
Early Metrical Systems 45

rmvb nxn Sa yp win | 5x mov 15a ade

pray nvm bx | pi ha dye mit royp re

rwton kD da ads | ovtbse per pro nd by 13

| nah at pp | pha nS orn | pysy Soy avi v3 nme ry
shy nwa ane pin

svion SS wen ean | oth yds pit nS 5

shan pha wa | wh abiy abd nin 16

sae pn pdb pon | nine nydy ovay nie ry

tyne po ends pind | nyf yoy ba ph owt nse 3s

The last of the alphabetical psalms is 119, and on this
Bellermann makes some remarks which bear on present-day
controversies. ‘Since the Hebrew does not count syllables
but weighs feet, not even these octostichs can be named by
syllables, or else it would be obvious to term them dodeca-
syllables, the majority consisting of six-foot lines, with two
syllables to the iambic foot. But this would be to mistake
the genius of Hebrew metre.’

‘ These are free catalectic, acatalectic, and hyper-catalectic
senaries, very essentially different from those of the Greeks
and Romans, in that they cannot be resolved into three
dipodies, or into trimeters, but they divide into two sesqui-
alters or two tripodies. To the analysis of a Hebrew senary
into trimeters is opposed the parallelism, a chief character-
istic of Hebrew poetry, for the sake of which the poet
sacrifices every other possible perfection. The cesura falls
in the middle of the verse, mainly at the end of a word. If
the logical parallelism in the first half of the verse demands
more syllables, there are usually fewer in the second half...
The free iambic structure with a few trochees and anapaests
is unmistakable.’
46 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Chapter II of Part III treats of non-alphabetical songs.

Only a few specimens can be given, he says, from a wide
field, which covers the whole of Psalms, Proverbs, and
Job, most of the sixteen prophets, with many songs and
speeches inserted in the historical books. These speci-
mens are Ex. 15. 1~18, Ps. 1, Deut. 32, 2 Sam. 1. 19-27,
Job 3. 4, 29.

Bellermann seems to have been the first to discover the
simple and beautiful metre of the song of Moses. There
are forty stichoi, distinctly regular. The structure is iambic
and anapaestic, mainly 4-toned, with cesura in the middle.
‘Calm thoughts are mostly in iambi, passionate emotions in
anapaests.. On Psalm 1 his analysis and remarks are of less
value than usual. On Deut. 32 he observes (p. 167 f.):
‘Here too occur in the basis’ (first foot of the line),
‘and occasionally elsewhere, certain long syllables, which
it is probable were especially prolonged (gedeAnt). As to
this, we must not fail to notice how our author in this
case also observes a certain evenness of measure.’ Cf.
p. 105: ‘In song and recitation some syllables were pro-
nounced longer (gedehnter) or shorter, and thereby were
adapted to the metre still more closely.’ Here is the seed
which has grown into the @berdehnen and zerdehnen, of which
Prof. Sievers is making so free use at the present day.

On Job 4: ‘I repeat, Hebrew metre has its own character-
istics, and while we may compare its forms with those of the
Greeks and Romans, they cannot be modelled after them.
Nor is this strange, for the Hebrew did not understand the
principles of the later classic poetry, but was led to similar
rules of art by the nature of the subject, by the organs of
speech, by his ear, by music, &c.’

Chapter III of Part III is devoted to the so-called psalms
of ascent, ma’aloth, Psalms 120-134. The various inter-
pretations of the phrase are taken up, and rejected one by
Early Metrical Systems 47

one, except that suggested by Michaelis (in Lowth), that
ma’alah = scala, and should be understood as in Syriac to
refer to poems and poetic feet. On this basis, Bellermann
brings out the curious hypothesis that the songs are named
from their prevailingly trochaic character, as contrasted with
the more customary iambics. The metre ascends’; it is
milel, not milra’; and muil’el has the same root as ma’alah.
Accordingly, these psalms are made up of ‘short verses,
consisting chiefly of trochees, with a few dactyls, very seldom
spondees, iambi, and, in the beginning, amphibrachs.’ This
can be made quite plausible if one puts the best foot forward,
and starts, as Bellermann does, with Psalm 127: But the
theory soon Jags under the weight of the facts. Almost any
iambic verse may be made to appear trochaic by commencing
the line with an anacrusis. This device is resorted to so
often as to become transparent. It is true there are many
trochees in the psalms of ascent, and yet it is highly im-
probable that this fact suggested their name, for there. are
not nearly so many as Bellermann finds. We have already
seen that both in English and in Hebrew ~ x often alternates
with x4 or x x +, Bellermann himself closes the investiga-
tion with a sentence which will command universal assent :
‘In brief, misunderstandings are unavoidable, and, after all,
the quantity cannot be so plainly indicated over Hebrew as
over Latin characters.”

Part IV examines Hebrew rimes, Part V Hebrew paral-
lelism ; Part VI presents the judgements of the ancients on
Hebrew metre. These portions of the book need not detain
us. But some extracts must be given from the concluding
summary :

‘The Hebrews have verse-measures, resting on short and
long syllables. They agree with the classic metres as regards
what is fundamental in the nature of human speech and of

1 Some would call this descending.
48 Systems of Hebrew Metre

universal music; aside from that, there is only a certain
resemblance. Many Hebrew verses are alike in their feet,
and even in their syllabic value, but there is probably not
a single long poem with always equal, precisely corresponding
poetic feet.

‘The Hebrews have strophes of three to eight verses,
which link themselves to one another in a certain manner by
parallel lines.

‘The metre of the ancient Hebrews is especially manifest
by hemistichs, stichoi, distichs, tristichs, tetrastichs, penta-
stichs, and even some hexastichs, where thoughts and words
were measured off uniformly. This artistic symmetry of
word and perception, this balance of expression and of
thought, constituted a chief element in Hebrew metre, and
can be accurately preserved in its translation.

‘ Those Hebrew scholiasts, the Massoretes, have preserved
by their metrical accentuation the scansion and modulation
of the ancients.’

He gives a list of metrical passages in the Old Testament
additional to those already examined in detail, and closes the
book with a modest hope that others will better this first
attempt.

The list is worth keeping in mind: the songs of Deborah,
Hannah, David (three of his, 2 Sam. 22, 23, 1 Chron. 17);
the prayer of Habakkuk, the Song of Songs entire; * sundry
royal songs, e.g. Psalm 2, several psalms of calamity, and
many passages in the prophets,’

The book as a whole is very sober, modern, and fruitful.
In the ninety years since it was issued the course of metrical
theory has followed many winding paths, and doubtless much
that is valuable has been gained, but much also has had: to
be unlearned ; and if it be true, as I believe, that a genuine
science of Hebrew metre must start from the received text
to establish its principles, however much it may aid at a later
Early Metrical Systems 49

stage in transforming that text, then Bellermann’s book will
always have its value as the first to substitute for the arbitrary
conjectures that had preceded him a sound investigation of
the traditional documents.

Joseph Levin Saalschtitz was born in Kénigsberg, 1801,
was chosen rabbi at Vienna, 1829, and at Kénigsberg, 1835,
became Privatdocent there 1849 (the first Jew who ever
received such an appointment), and was afterwards made
honorary professor in the same university. He died at
KG6nigsberg in 1863.

His great work on our subject is entitled Von der Form
der hebritischen Poeste, nebst einer Abhandlung iiber die Musik
der Hebrdéer (Kénigsberg, 1825, pp. 402, with several plates).
The page is a little larger and more closely printed than
Bellermann’s; I should judge that the book contains nearly
double the matter.

An erroneous statement which some cyclopaedias have
copied from one another is that Saalschiitz republished this
book with two additional treatises under the title Horm und
Geist der biblisch-hebraischen Poesie (Konigsberg, 1853). As
a matter of fact, this last is merely a pamphlet, the first part
aiming to condense and popularize his volume, but adding
nothing of essential value.

The original work, however, is a marvel of solid erudition,
all the more astonishing in that it emanated from a youth of
twenty-four. Nothing could exceed the modesty of the
author’s preliminary remarks (p. 9):

‘But in no wise did I ever conceive that my opinion is
the unconditionally right one; for where two parties differ
about a matter one of them must surely be mistaken, and
why should not J be the one?’

- Prof, Hahn furnished the young aspirant with a preface,
which is interesting reading, as it shows that he himself had

cOuB E
50 Systems of Hebrew Metre

gone through a parallel process of reflection on Hebrew
metre with Budde’s (see the Introduction of this book). He
is warm in praise of Saalschiitz’s grammatical and archaeo-
logical investigations, but studiously non-committal on the
main issue.

Part I gives the views of the most important previous
writers on Hebrew metre, from Philo and Josephus to Beller-
mann and Gesenius. The later writers among these, fifty-four
in all, are grouped in five classes according to the degree of
their belief or disbelief in the existence of Hebrew metre;
for instance, Lowth belongs to the class headed ‘ Belief in the
presence of a Hebrew metre, coupled with doubt of the
possibility of discovering it,’ while De Wette’s class is
described thus—‘ Actual assertion of the total lack of any
regularity at all perceptible by the ear in the construction of
the biblical poems.’ But by far the greater part of the dis-
cussion (fifty pages out of eighty-two) is given to the first
class: ‘Belief in the presence of a Hebrew metre, and various
attempts to represent it.’ Under this title are treated
Gomarus, Meibomius, Hare, Jones, Anton, Leutwein, Greve,
and Bellermann. The last is our first, since the others are
discounted by the heavy percentage of conjecture in their
theories; as Saalschiitz says of Anton’s construction, ‘the
pillars that seem to support it are, if the expression may be
pardoned, an optical illusion’ Throughout the book he
constantly cites Bellermann, almost ignoring the others.
He mentions him in most respectful terms, though his
main object is to put forth an antagonistic system. The
critical work in this whole Part I is admirably done; later
writers, when treating of the earlier periods, have needed to
do little more than quote from Saalschiitz; see a modern
instance in Schlégl’s prize essay, 1899. Our author
qualifies De Wette’s decided rejection of Bellermann’s
theory (p. 61): ‘ Excellent as this judgement is, still it cannot
‘Early Metrical Systems 5i

deprive of his due merit the originator of this attempt to
ascertain the Hebrew metre. The attempt itself is and
remains most valuable, for it is the first to show us what
we have to expect in a metrical direction from the text of
the biblical poems, when scanned according to the metrical
tone-stress.’

He goes on to criticize the system and soon lays his
finger on its most vulnerable point, the doctrine of the morae.
The reader may ask what, after all, the system of morae has
to do with the metrical division of a line of poetry. The
answer given by one school, represented in our day by
Ley and Budde (though Ley, as we shall see, changed his
view), is that it has nothing to do with it; a line has
a certain number of accented syllables, it is 3-toned,
5-toned, &c., without regard to the units of time (morae)
in the separate words; it may have as many unaccented
syllables as the poet pleases. The answer given by another
school, represented now by Grimme, is that the structure
of a true verse takes account of both arsis and thesis ; the
entire line must preserve a certain symmetry with respect
to time. I simply state the question at present, that we
may note its importance as we proceed. Let it not be
supposed, however, that Saalschiitz is contending against
the system of morae; he is only trying to simplify and
rationalize it.

Bellermann held that a syllable with the tone may have.
either two or four morae instead of the regular three. Upon
this Saalschiitz observes (pp. 61 f.): ‘How can the accent
‘discharge at the same time two such opposite duties? Sup-
posing it increases the value of the syllable, as it might
easily do through the weight of the tone, that would suit the
case of the two-morae syllable to be sure, but why should it
be bound on to the over-weighty four-morae syllable? In
that case its over-weight would certainly be still more

E2
52 Systems of Hebrew Metre

strengthened, and so the irregularity would become yet
greater. The accent must have some influence on the
syllable since, by hypothesis, it makes its irregularity cease to
be such; it must either increase or lessen its value, but it
cannot do both.’ Saalschiitz then refers to a class of words
like 39, which seem to have but two morae in the un-
accented syllable. Bellermann tried to provide for this by
the rule that final 7 does not quiesce after seghol. But
whence the rule? If 7 has its consonant force it should be
pointed with mappzk. Besides, there are similar words with
x, as Ndp, xdo.

There seems to be no escaping the force of this criti-
cism.

Part II, pp. 97-326, carries the main weight of the book.
It is called ‘An attempt at a complete, and in a good degree
new, representation of the form of Hebrew poetry.’ Part III,
on the music of the Hebrews, lies outside the scope of our
subject. In fact, a large portion of Part II deals with
matters so subsidiary that they need receive only a cursory
glance.

Chapter I is on the parallelism of ideas. But this may be
as perfect in prose as in poetry. Chapter II, ‘ Poetical word-
forms and words,’ treats of material rather than metre.
Chapter III, ‘ Regular form of the sentences,’ shows that in,
Hebrew poetry the lines are often uniform, often alternating -
in length, and that sometimes two words must be taken
together. It consists chiefly of citations from Rabbi Azarias
and Moses Mendelssohn. Chapter IV, ‘ Strophes,’ is very
inadequate, but a few examples are given, as Pss. 42-43,
107, Isa. 9. 11-10. 4, and a few hints toward a theory (which
the author hoped to develop later) that Selah may be designed
to mark strophical divisions. Chapter V, on rhyme, and
Chapter VI, on word-plays, I pass over. Chapter VII, ‘Had
Hebrew verses measure and rhythm?’, comes to the heart
Early Metrical Systems 53

of the matter, but confines itself to preliminary grounds in
the affirmative.

The first consideration is the improbability that the
Hebrews formed an exception to the general rule that
ancient peoples began their literature with metrical songs
rather than with prose compositions. This is fortified by
a long extract from Lowth. Secondly, the Hebrews had
music ; in all probability, therefore, their poetry fitted it in
time-measure. The author replies cleverly to De Wette’s
objection that early verse, like folk-songs, is rude and
irregular. De Wette had cited the song of the witches:

Wir fliegen tiber Land und Meer
Wie der Wind durch die weite, weite Welt umher.

Saalschiitz shows that the time of each of these lines is
precisely the same. He adds that even if the words of the
ancient Hebrew melodies had been irregular at first, the
music would soon have conformed the words to itself.

Thirdly, the lengthened and shortened forms of words in
poetry are apparently assumed, as in Greek, Latin, and
German, in order that the poet may more readily fit his
metres.

Fourthly, the frequent alternation of long and short lines
in Hebrew poetry points to a metrical principle; what else
could have occasioned it? Fifthly (this is important), those
who assert the existence of Hebrew metre are accustomed to
advance such considerations as the foregoing, but, as a
matter of fact, their belief in it has a deeper source ; they
feel its presence as they read the poetry, and even those
who deny that any metrical principles can be formulated
often confess to just such a feeling; ‘mein Herz sagt
es mir,’ says Rabbi Azarias. The sixth reason appears
in a few concessions by Greve, Anton, and Lowth, and
then the general conclusion is drawn that the presence
54 Systems of Hebrew Metre

of Hebrew metre has been made at least very probable.
The next step is to establish a formal prosody of the Hebrew
language.

Chapter IX, ‘Of vowels, half-vowels, and their influence
upon syllable-formation.’ (By an error in numbering there
is no chapter marked VIII.) With one exception this is the
longest chapter in the book; it is devoted principally to
wrestling with Bellermann over the sh’va.

It is a very pretty controversy. Bellermann had antici-
pated criticism on his position that the various sh’vas and
pattah furtive are not vowels and have no time equivalents.
Answering the objection that this would render Hebrew
poetry rude and repugnant through the heaping up of con-
sonants with no intervening vowel, he admits the fact but
denies the inference. The organs of speech, if trained to it,
dispose easily of remarkable combinations of consonants.
A Frenchman can do nothing with ‘ schwierig,’ nor an Italian
with $6éyyos, nor a German with the Polish ‘rschtscha.’ But
Saalschiitz replies that some Hebrew words begin with such
a combination of two consonants that the sh’va between
them must be vocal, e.g. 830, 1D, It lies in the nature
of those two consonants that they cannot be heard without
an intervening vowel or half-vowel. The case is still clearer
when the same consonant is repeated at the beginning of
a word, as NbDD, 11995, or when the initial consonant is &
or ¥, eg. Tiny, NON ; how can the first letter be heard at
all unless the sh’va is sounded? The sh’va, says Bellermann,
is nothing but the sign of a vowel-less consonant, affixed by
the punctilious care of the Massoretes lest the reader should
rnake the mistake of vocalizing such consonants. But if so,
answers Saalschiitz, why did they not content themselves with
a single sign instead of one simple and three compound
sh’vas? And, furthermore, why are most final letters and
aleph otiant written without sh’va? for there is just as much
Early Metrical Systems 55

danger of vocalizing, for instance, the 8 and n in n'wans,
as any other vowel-less letter.

It appears reasonable to believe that ‘vo consonants wth
sh’va require more time than ome consonant we¢hout sh’va.
Not so, however, in Bellermann’s opinion; a good speaker
or singer takes the same time for ich, sich, stich, strich, or
for ach, Dach, Schach, schwach. Here, in my opinion,
Saalschiitz gives a weak rejoinder. He contrasts the com-
binations ‘erst ich’ and ‘erst strich’ to show that s¢rich
takes more time than zch. Of course the hiatus makes a
difference. Another fallacy lies in the suggestion that if
we pronounce slowly zch and s/rich we see that the latter
is appreciably longer; the fallacy lies in the word slowly.
A singer will fill up the same unit of time for each, the
metronome proves that; he utters the longer word more
rapidly.

On this point Bellermann seems to be right; but Saal-
schtitz makes out a strong case for vocalizing sh’va, adducing
further—

(1) The metheg often found with sh’va; (2) the vowel
which replaces sh’va in pause; (3) alternate forms like 13m)
and 39m3x, which could not be told apart without vocal
sh'va; (4) the aleph with sh’va in the alphabetical psalms;
(5) sh’va in cognate dialects and in translations. But he
acknowledges that often it builds no syllable, and he draws
this inference: sh’va is such a sound that at the speaker’s
will it may either be uttered fully or passed over. Nor is
this peculiar to Hebrew, as he shows by Greek and German
examples.

Chapter X, though entitled ‘Of the accents as recitation
signs,’ is mainly an attempt to set down precisely, and to
connect with antiquity, the tunes of the modern Jewish
cantillation. Each word has its own proper melody, which is
indicated by the accent. Inflexional changes make this or
56 Systems of Hebrew Metre

that syllable more prominent and draw the accent to it,
varying the melody.

Chapter XI, ‘Of the accents as pretended tone-signs.’
Here the polemic aspect of the book sets in strongly, though
the style is still courteous. Accents have been shown to be
punctuation marks, and musical marks; why should they
also be tone-marks? This third form is @ prdord improb-
able; and yet it is assumed by the grammarians as if it
were axiomatic. In that case, one would think it a simple
matter to designate the tone-syllable; but the results of
former researches are neither uniform nor satisfactory.
(Here he specifies as follows:

‘Leutwein, yet without completely carrying out his sys-
tem; Anton, yet with an intermingling of many arbitrary
and incorrect principles; finally, with genuine soundness,
fairness and fullness, Bellermann.’)

The Jews of to-day, Saalschiitz proceeds to argue, pro-
nounce their language according to other rules than those
of accent, and as Hebrew has never ceased to be a living
speech, it is not likely that an entirely new tone-system has
ever been foisted upon them. Looking again at the
Massoretic accents, it appears that about a third of them
(prepositives or postpositives) camnof mark the tone; for
they hold a uniform place at the beginning or the end of
a word. The poetical books have a double system of
accentuation ; but if accent marks the tone, would not the
Massoretes have indicated which set is to be followed?
Sometimes the accent stands on sh’va which cannot have
the tone.

In fact, he proceeds, the whole accentual system is far
too artificial, and too closely intertwined with nice points of
grammar to have been a guide to the common people in
the matter of tone-stress. Besides, the majority of Hebrew
words are accenied on the ultima, and it is unlikely that the
Early Metrical Systems 57

Hebrew language differed so radically from Syriac and
Arabic where the predominant séress is on the penult.
Now this is just the practice of the Jews to-day, and pre-
sumably of their ancestors. Any one who tries to read
Hebrew will find that this is both more rhythmic and more
natural, Milra’ and mil’el are also more easily explained
thus.

Chapter XII, ‘Metric and grammatical value of the
accents; makkeph, metheg.’ A large part of the final
syllables, in Hebrew as in other tongues, are mere inflex-
ional appendages, which would not naturally receive the
accent. Thus in JN, the J as a declension-ending is out-
side the melody of the word, and the accent happens to
coincide with the tone. But in 7925, while the main tone
falls on 3, there is an ictus on 4, which is thus brought
within the range of the melody; to indicate this it receives
an accent.

Another use of the accent is to distinguish words other-
wise alike; for example, 133 ‘they built,’ 4 ‘in us,’ and
many more. Now it is altogether probable that > wa
‘they built for thee,’ was pronounced bdnu 14k, though the
accent of the verb remained on the ultima. On the other
hand, when ON is prefixed to nA it becomes ADH, but if
the tone was on the ultima, it is hard to see why it should
have been changed, or the vowel shortened. There are
many similar cases, leading to the conclusion that the
Hebrew relished a trochee at the end of a word. It is hard,
too, to believe that a mere euphonic appendage like nun
paragogic would change the tone of a word, as it certainly
does change the accent. The same reasoning applies to
the change of accent with prefixed makkeph. As to metheg,
it has the same relation to the ictus that the accent has
to the tone. ‘If now one gives to a Hebrew word, as is
58 Systems of Hebrew Metre

possible with a slow articulation, the full value of its
separate syllables as demanded by the tone, ictus, accent,
and metheg, it will sound purely trochaic or more spon-
daic, according as accent and metheg coincide or not with
the tone and ictus. The sentences will thus generally
have the rhythm of double measure, the reverse of the
iambic rhythm which they would have if tone followed
accent. (Strictly speaking, iambics do not give double
measure.)’

The reader will perceive the sweeping character of these
suggestions, which would revolutionize the customary pro-
nunciation of Hebrew among biblical scholars all over the
world, and conform it to the practice of some (by no means
all) modern Jews. The reasons assigned, though ingenious,
are quite inadequate. For instance, if final w attracts the
accent to itself, why should it not attract the tone? and
the same argument applies in other cases. As a matter of
fact, the theory has failed to commend itself.

Chapter XIII, ‘The system of morae.’ Apart from the
points already mentioned, Saalschiitz agrees fairly well with
Bellermann on this subject. To the objection that when we
give almost all syllables three morae we produce a dead
level of uniformity, he replies that there is a marked differ-
ence of time in enunciating the syllables, and even the
letters, of any language (e.g. our / and #), but that the mora
is the limit, beyond which the tone is not to be protracted.
It marks not absolute but relative time; two readers will
differ in their rapidity of utterance.

He has to meet the palpable fact that many accented
syllables have two or four morae, instead of three, and that
some unaccented syllables have two morae. But he finds
special reasons wherever possible, and allows a generous
margin for exceptions. For instance, in 72 and M3, the
last syllable is so weak that the tone-syllable is practically
Early Metrical Systems 59

final, as evinced by the variant forms 57, !]. Though
metheg does not usually add a mora to the syllable, Beller-
mann thinks it does in 7)N*}, and Saalschiitz agrees with
him.

The summary is worth remembering, especially for the
apt illustration with which it closes, even though it
seems inconsistent with the previous answer to the same
objection.

‘When any one sets out from these observations, and
studies the syllables of the Hebrew language, he cannot
help finding in them a certain symmetry, and this is all that
is claimed for the system of morae. If some have thought
that such a symmetry would produce monotony, their judge-
ment has been at fault; for it is the tone and the ictus, as
already shown, that produce the rhythm of Hebrew speech ;
and the more uniform the foundation of syllables is, upon
which these conditions of rhythm are to enter, so much the
more plainly will the rhythm itself stand out. Just as light
and shade, which the painter interchanges upon a surface by
his art, will produce a better effect, and one more conform-
able to his desire, if the surface is even, and has equal light
over all, than if it is rough and irregular, so that the light
strikes it unequally,’

Chapter XIV, ‘On the quantity of the Hebrew syllables,’
and Chapter XV, ‘On the verse-feet of the Hebrew lan-
guage,’ have important titles, but unimportant and very brief
contents. Chapter XVI, ‘On the rhythm of the Hebrew
poems,’ is also brief, and asserts quite dogmatically that all
Hebrew poems have one and the same rhythm, ‘resembling
that of the hexameter. He holds that the movement of this
verse, and also that of a modern German hexameter, is
3 time rather than 2. Several illustrations are given from
Klopstock’s odes. Chapter XVII is ‘On the Hebrew verse
as part of the poem, and on its other characteristics.” For
60 Systems of Hebrew Metre

making metrical out of Massoretic verses, our guides must
be the contents, the parallelism, and the accents. Thus
divided a whole poem is often found to be composed of
lines of equal length, mostly six-footed, which may also be
reckoned as three-footed. The variation in the length of
a verse frequently corresponds with a change in the thought.
In general we must look for a natural rhythm, not the precise
and highly artistic metre of the Greeks and Romans. For
many cases no strict rule can be laid down. For instance,
vocal sh’va may or may not form a Eyliable ; we my pro-

nounce with equal propriety sha-me-ru or sham-ra. By
elision of one vowel when two come together, a dactyl may
be read as a spondee. ‘There rules herein, as I am free
to confess, almost total arbitrariness. I have followed my
ear withal, and what it offered me as the most natural and
unforced, this I have accepted.’

The two chapters that follow are devoted, the first to
alphabetical, the second to non-alphabetical, psalms. Several
examples of each are given; the Hebrew is printed solid,
with perpendicular bars between the (metrical) verses; then
the whole is transliterated and marked off into feet, the
quantity of each syllable being indicated; then follow brief
notes on rhythmic peculiarities. It is a work of immense
industry, but of little value at the present day, owing to the
perverse pronunciation. Dactyls, spondees, and trochees
are everywhere; if a troublesome iambus or anapaest pre-
sents itself, its head is cut off and called an anacrusis. The
author is continually standing on Bellermann’s shoulders
and forcing the rhythms of his predecessor into his own
moulds. The reader shall have a sample of the process,
aftér which he will doubtless be ready to pass on.
Early Metrical Systems 61
Proverbs 31. 14-14.

14 hajtha ca- | nioth | socher

mim-merchak | thabi | lachmah
15 vath-thakom be- | od || lajlah

vath-thitthem | teref le- | bethah
16 vehok le- | naa ro- | theha

sommah | sadeh vath- | thikka- | chehu

mip-pri cap- | peha | nota | carem

17 chagra ba- | ‘os moth- | neha

Lee ie ma aes
vath-ammez se- | roo- | thea.
CHAPTER III
EWALD AND ERNST MEIER

Tue nineteenth century was in the midst of its fourth
decade before any other important work on our subject
appeared (with the possible exception of a book by
M. Nicolas, Forme de la poésie hébratque, 1833, which I have
not seen). It is true that in 1831 Késter laid the foundation
of strophic theories in the Studien und Kritiken, pp. 40-131.
But I purposely defer the consideration of that topic until we
take up the system of D. H. Miiller. In 1835-9 Heinrich
Ewald published his Déchter des Alten Bundes. The first
part includes the topic of rhythm and metre. This has
never been translated into English. Both the merits and the
faults of the great Orientalist are conspicuous in this work ;
but, pursuing the plan announced, I dwell chiefly on the
former. A passing glance is due to a signal sin of omis-
sion ;—neither Bellermann nor Saalschiitz are so much as
mentioned in the discussion !

What follows here is an abstract of pp. 94-134 of the
Dichter (2nd ed., 1866). Pages 134-205 treat chiefly of
strophes, and will be examined in a later chapter.

The inner basis of Hebrew poetry is a thought and its
answering thought; its outward basis is a verse and its
answering verse, together forming a harmony, as in the song
of Deborah:

For that Israel’s leaders took the lead,
For that the people showed themselves brave.
Ewald and Ernst Meter 63

Now if the formal principle of verse is found in the alternate
rise and fall of the tone, poetry is not sufficiently distin-
guished from prose. But in prose the alternation is subject
to chance, and differs widely in successive verses; while
poetry demands a regular movement of arsis and thesis,
which resolves these opposites into a higher unity. This
cycle of concordant members, even when completed only
once, forms a verse, and its repetition leads to an ever fuller
and higher development, which with whatever changes and
apparent deviations (song, epos, &c.) always moves in beau-
tiful harmony within the twofold law of rise and fall, In
the early stages of poetry there is no conflict between the
thoughts and: the sounds of the words; and the highest
perfection of verse-rhythm would be that of expressing, with
equal power and beauty, the thought as the soul of speech
and the sound as its body; but as a matter of fact the
latter encroaches, and the more beautiful the harmony, so
much the more readily it seems to suffice alone; here is
the rock on which the spirit of poetry is in danger of being
wrecked.

But in comparison with other ancient literature, Hebrew
poetry remained at a relatively simple stage of development.
The oldest kind of verse that we know in any national
literature has the form 4x x | 4x x |“. In Hebrew such
a verse-member contains on the average seven or eight
syllables.

Old languages like the Greek, Indian, and Arabic, which
permit a fixed and beautiful interchange of long and short
syllables, can carry a definite rhythm into every separate
syllable of the verse-member. The Indians did not borrow
this rhythm from the Greeks, nor the Arabs from either ;
Indians and Arabs, as soon as we can trace their history, are
acquainted with the progressive rhythm x 4 x| x~ x x|x x4,
while the Greeks have the reverse, 4x |-4x x. And all
64 Systems of Hebrew Metre

alike have not only the unequal foot x +, 4 x, but also the
fuller x x 4,4 x x,orx4x+4,4x+x,

But many languages knew little or nothing of this fine
interchange of short and long syllables, and confined them-
selves in pronunciation to the most necessary sounds. In
its earliest period, the Hebrew was numbered among these.
‘On that very account, then, the Hebrew was disinclined
to any syllabic rhythm in verse; and this finest achievement
of the poetic tone-art, whereby the entire verse-movement in
the poet’s mind becomes plainly audible with the full beat of
the very first sounds, remained strange to the Hebrew verse.’
True, the Spanish Jews imported into Hebrew from the
Arabs a syllabic metre, and modern German Jews have
imitated the Greek and Latin metres: but neither tendency
was native to the Hebrew. Other languages, too, abounded
in rime, alliteration, word-play and refrains; Hebrew made
but sparing use of the two last, and no use of rime and
alliteration; it was too earnest a speech, too large in its
scope.

And yet it was not unrestrained ; the members of a verse
could not be unduly protracted; the number of syllables,
though not rigidly exact, was fairly regular; extending to
seven or eight syllables on the average, it might reach to
nine or eleven, it might be shortened to five or six. There
being so few monosyllables, the voice had to mark the rise
by a stress of tone; the simplest line would be 4 x |-4 x |.
Such a syllabic metre Syriac has possessed ever since it has
been known, i.e. since the early centuries of our era; later
writers added end-rime through imitating Arabic and
Persian. The rhythm may vary with the feeling of the
poet, still preserving its equality of syllables ; Syriac writers
have illustrated this fully. Since Hebrew stood near to
Syriac, one might conjecture a similar tone-law for its verse-
structure. In truth, there was nothing of the sort. Take
Ewald and Ernst Meter 65

even the smoothest Hebrew verses, as Prov. 10. 1-22. 16,
or Pss. 111 and 112, there is great, but not full, similarity
in the number of syllables ; but a syllabic rhythm calls for
precision.

Another possible law of rhythm prevailed in antiquity
among all Germanic peoples, and still holds in their folk-
Songs. Every important word in a verse or verse-member
counts as a rise, receiving a tone-stress; two or three such
appear in every verse or verse-member, while the subordinate
words (more or fewer) are passed over rapidly. In spite of
its simplicity there is here a plain and definite tone-law; any
lack of symmetry felt by the ear is supplied by the rhymes
which occur. These last are wanting in Hebrew poetry; it
belongs to the class represented in ancient times by Egyptian
and Chinese, in modern times by languages of the very
simplest structure. Even throughout its entire manifold and
magnificent development Hebrew poetry remained charac-
terized by a rhythm of mere verse-members; this we are now
to investigate more particularly.

I. Zhe nature of the Hebrew verse-rhythm.

As we have seen, there is no precise law for the number
of syllables in a measure; when it exceeds or falls short of
the average of seven or eight we shall be able to adduce special
grounds for the fact. Usually each member, especially the
first member of a verse, forms an independent sentence;
the Hebrew language is so compressed that the average of
seven or eight syllables suffices for such a sentence.

At times the compression goes further ; an independent
phrase of from three to five syllables forms a member, and
two such phrases form a line, as

Hear, ye rulers! mark, ye princes
Le tx | 4 «we 4 &

COBB F
66 Systems of Hebrew Metre

or within the phrase itself a part springs up anew, as
I to Jahwe, I will sing,

4x t4x|tx +
(will) sing to Jahwe, Israel’s God.

4 x4Axlj[tx #4

Had the Hebrew held by this original tone-law that every
member should consist of two smaller members, it would
have produced a regular syllabic metre. But a new tendency
soon set in to blend the subordinate with the principal
phrase, as

Jahwe ! when thou didst march from Seir,
or,

Sing to Jahwe that he was high, yea high.
Now to the first member, as arsis, there is joined a corre-
sponding thesis. Languages with syllabic rhythm can indi-
cate the contrast by a tone-stress upon a given syllable in
the line; although this is impossible in Hebrew, the voice
tends upward in the arsis, and gravitates to a rest-point in
the thesis; an example that illustrates all similar cases is

. / . . , . .
in Judges 5. 12, “)y in arsis, *")y in thesis:

, 4 4
Up now, up now, Deborah!
, 2 ,
Pp now, up now, sing the song!

But though two members, rising and falling, make the essential
elements of a verse, the verse is not obliged to stop at this
simplest form. ‘There may be a mere enlargement, as from
a trochaic dimeter to a trimeter; or a composition, as a
hexameter and pentameter distich. Or there may be dimi-
nution instead. All these forms are treated freely in Hebrew,
and require close attention. Syllabic metre being absent,
the rhythmic energy of the thought must pervade the verse-
members, and as two members correspond each must express
a similar thought; hence parallelism of members is funda-
Ewald and Ernst Meter 67

mental to Hebrew poetry. The methods of this expression
‘may vary, giving rise to different stages of the harmony. As
(1) An echoing of the whole sentence, e.g. :
Hear, my son, thy father’s instruction ;
Reject not thy mother’s teaching.
In prose we should put both parents in the same sentence.
(2) A less vivid, more sluggish rhythm, where the sentence
fs merely too long for a single line:
Into their own nets may the wicked fall,
while I withal escape.
(3) Between these stands a rhythm that expresses harmony
of thought rather than of form:

Were I hungry, I would not tell it thee,
For mine is the world and all its fullness.

Il. L£xtent and limits of the verse.

It has a great variety of form corresponding to the various
emotions that call it forth, but the one harmony rings
through all, perceptible even in the minutest portions.

1. Occasionally, but seldom, we find a single member
without anything to answer to it; e.g. Ps, 23. 1:

soon xd ys nm

2. Not only the fundamental but the most frequent verse
is in two members. An example has just been given
under 1. (1).

3. A verse containing more than two members arises

(1) By enlargement, as from two parallel and equal
members to three, for instance:

Let the enemy persecute and take my soul,
And tread my life down to the ground,
And lay my honour low in the dust.

This never proceeds beyond three clauses.
F2
68 Systems of Hebrew Metre
(2) By composition ; under this are several varieties :

(a). ab +cd, that is, four members in two pairs. This is
the grandest, most dignified rhythm :
In my distress, I call on Jahve,
Aloud I cry to my God:
He from his palace hears me calling,
My cry doth pierce his ears.
(4) two unequal parts, either a, be:

For a thousand years in thy sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
and even as a watch in the night.

Or, ab, c:

We will triumph in thy salvation,
Magnify the name of our God ;
Jahve will grant all thy prayers.

(c) four members, two equal and two unequal ; a, be, d,
for example:

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me,
For my soul is trusting in thee,
And to the shadow of thy wings I fly,
Till the peril is o’er.

(3) A verse of several members may assume new forms
through concentration or abbreviation. The first two
members of a quatrain may be united into one prolonged
member, the other two remaining as before, so that abcd
becomes Acd, e.g.:

Mountains of Gilboa, no dew, no rain ll come upon you, nor
fields of offerings !
For there the shield of heroes is defiled,
The shield of Saul, not andinted with oil.

There are many such cases, in some of which we might
almost go back to a genuine quatrain, but in others this is
‘Ewald and Ernst Meier 69

clearly impossible. Again, a verse of five members, like
Ps. 17. 14, may take the form ABde, where AB =abc..

Such are the limits of verse-structure. It is plain that
even the longest verse has a fixed axis, an inner unity.
But if a single verse can develop the thought no farther,
the verses that follow it can take up the same thought, note
Pss. 96. 12, 13; 98. 8, 9. Cf. 8. 4-9.

The rhythm sometimes depends on a refrain taken up in
a later verse (hail-stones and coals of fire, Ps. 18. 13 f.), and
this may be endlessly varied.

Jil. Zhe verse in relation to varteties of poetry.

1. Gnomic or proverb-rhythm, a quiet, even measure,
comparable to the Greek dactyl or spondee. The outer form
is that of two simple, corresponding members, averaging
seven or eight syllables each; as to the inner form, the
verse must be independent, and compress the full thought
into this brief compass, the two halves forming sentence and
counterpart or fact and image. Only later proverbs are
more extended.

2. Lyric poetry, on the contrary, overflows with ‘the
pressure of thought and emotion into longer and redu-
plicated forms, though these too have their fixed limits.
The unequal measure resembles the iambus or trochee, is
brilliant with varied colours, is disharmony resolved into
harmony. Hebrew song-art is extremely pictorial and
emotional.

3. We cannot say that dramatic rhythm shows itself in
the book of Job, which is of a gnomic cast, except a few
highly tragic passages, which however are lyric in form. In
the Song of Songs we find a peculiar rhythm; not the
elevated style of the cothurnus, but a free picture of every-
day life ;.each verse is in two halves, none longer than five
members, two verses often uniting to form a long line.
70 Systems of Hebrew Metre

IV. Zhe verse in relation to the course of history.

1. In the oldest known songs, Num. 21, Exod. 15, Judges 5,
we have a springing and lively rhythm; especially in
Deborah’s song one seems to hear the beat of music, the
circling dance of the singer. No later poetry attains to
such beauty, simplicity, and power. The form is in harmony
with the content; the verse-members are short, and, though
there are exceptions to this, there is no such artificial pro-
longation as occurs at a later period.

2. In the Davidic age rhythm reaches its boldest flight
and its fullest development. In lyric poetry the first member
of a verse may be uncommonly prolonged. Toward the
close of the eighth century, with a falling off in poetic fire,
the expression also is feebler; how tame, for instance, is
Ps, 48, 8:

With storm from the east
He shatters Tarshish-ships.

It must be granted that the age produced many graceful
verses; the book of Job furnishes the greatest example
of this artistic manner. But the inner power could not
return.

3. After so many varieties of rhythm had arisen poetry
took an eclectic turn, copying the several forms with free
selection. This is noticeable in the book of Lamentations
and the rest of the alphabetical poems. Belonging also to
the sixth century are certain other forms:

(1) The long-membered, in distinction from the many-
membered verse; a typical example is Ps. 19. 8-113 see
also Isa. 14. 4-23.

(2) What we may call a trochaic verse, the first member
standing to the second in the proportion 1:1 | 2, which
inequality resolves itself by the repetition of the verses; see
Ps. 121.
Ewald and Ernst Meter 71

Already, then, in the sixth century Hebrew poetry was in
course of transition to a more regular and mechanical mode
of composition, which reached its height in the philosophical
passages of Koheleth.

V. Conclusion.

1. It results from the free form of ancient Hebrew verse
that we are not to look for syllabic metre in it; what was
before unlikely is now seen to be unreal, in fact impossible.
True, many recent writers suppose themselves to have found
this, but only from the erroneous view that all poetry of all
peoples must have a syllabic metre. Not one of them has
actually found a tolerable or even possible metre; all such
attempts should be abandoned, for the uncertainty of the
traditional text will always prevent their success. And yet
the text cannot be so corrupt but that we could find traces
of a syllabic metre if it ever existed ; even if the true pronun-
ciation be utterly lost, our eyes tell us that the members of
many verses differ greatly in the number of their respective
syllables. But the apparent metrical defect is a real gain ;
the spirit of poetry is all the more predominant when the
form becomes secondary.

2. How ought Hebrew poetry to be rendered into lan-
guages which are acquainted only with syllabic metre? An
attempt at too nice imitation of the original is almost sure to
sacrifice something of its true spirit; it is better, then, for
the translator to study thoroughly the Hebrew idioms, but
to express his version in the idioms of his own tongue.

3. Our survey sustains the Massoretic division of verses
against the occasional deviation of ancient and modern
versions, which sometimes make the verse-member the unit
instead of the verse. This practice overlooks the connex-
jons and the separations of the poet’s thought. Still, as the
oldest manuscripts were written stichically, and the present
72 Systems of Hebrew. Metre

form of printing Hebrew poetry grew out of the desire to
save space, we shall do well to return to the former method,
and also to follow the Massoretes in analysing each stichos
into its subtler divisions. :

Thus far Ewald, in as full a presentation as space permits.
A few remarks-may be appended before we proceed.
~"We have in him one of a series of writers on Hebrew
metre who devise their own systems with little regard to their
predecessors ; as Budde observes in Hastings’s Dectionary of
the Bible, the several theories are in juxtaposition without
being correlated. Such a correlation, therefore, is left for
the critics to attempt. As compared with the two systems
already examined, Ewald has certainly brought us some
things that are new. The broader outlook is conspicuous,
and the keener insight; as we read him we feel ourselves
placed at the modern point of view, every part is related to
the great whole; ‘harmony,’ ‘cycles,’ ‘development’ are
frequent terms. His polemic against a rhythm of syllables
is a negative judgement which may be left untouched until
we have heard from the affirmative side. Yet he him-
self does count the syllables, claims that their number is
fairly regular in each line, and gives the limits of possible
variation. He notes the various kinds of tone-stress in a
foot, though not so fully as his predecessors; on the other
hand, he groups the lines, whereas they had left them
unrelated; but there is a gap in his system. He jumps from
the single foot to the marshalling of lines, and does not
account for the variety of ways in which the feet are com-
bined. Lines that we have learned to distinguish as 3+ 3,
4+4,3+2, 2+ 3 he lumps indiscriminately as ab or 1: 1.
He would pay no regard to the great: irregularities which
are found, as above, among the psalms of the middle books.
His long-membered verse is simply the Azz@.. It is a curious
Ewald and Ernst Meter 93

coincidence that both he and Bellermann use the term
ftrochaic’ as an imperfect illustration of the rhythm of
Ps, 121, although Bellermann refers to foot-measures, Ewald
to line-measures. In general, Ewald’s use of symbols shows
a confusion of mathematical relations; e.g. A = ab, but
AB = abc, instead of abcd, and the like. His chapter on
the verse in relation to the course of history is quite super-
seded by modern historical criticism.

. About the middle of the nineteenth century Professor
Ernst Meier of Tiibingen, known as a commentator on
Isaiah and Joel, as well as on the poetical books of the Old
Testament, made a new contribution to Hebrew metrics,
which is entitled Die Form der hebrédischen Poeste, a thin
octavo volume of 120 pages, published at Tiibingen in 1853.
This was succeeded by several other works which apply his
theories on a wider scale. The preface tells us that he found
the key to the system here presented by a ten years’ study of
Suabian popular literature, embracing its folk-lore, legends,
manners and customs, fairy tales, songs, and nursery rhymes ;
eminent fellow countrymen like Uhland and the brothers
Grimm took the liveliest interest in his results. He then
proceeds to say:

‘ Although it was only out of pure joy that I gave myself
up to this business, yet at the same time I have gained far
more for the understanding of the Old Testament through
my travels of discovery in Suabia than would ever have been
possible from a journey to Jerusalem. This may seem
strange to many, but it is really so.’

The first chapter of the book, ‘The species of poetry in
general and of Hebrew poetry in particular,’ opposes Hegel’s
thesis that all poetry begins with the objective Epos, which is
followed by the subjective Lyric, and this by the union of
both in the Drama. Professor Meier looks sensibly at the
74 Systems of Hebrew Metre

facts, and shows that lyric poetry is fundamental, and that
Hebrew poetry is nothing else but lyric, if we may group
didactic or gnomic poetry under that head, and include in
the group the theologico-political popular orations of the
prophets (rhetorical lyric).

Chapter II is on ‘The form of Hebrew poetry in general.’

Song, with which all poetry begins, is originally linked
with music. An expression of feeling which is at once vocal
and musical will manifest itself according to rhythmic rules,
that is to say, lyric song has necessarily verses and strophes.
The most essential distinction between poetry and prose is
not in the contents, the lofty thoughts, the pictorial expres-
sion, &c., but just in the form of representation, the rhythmi-
cal measure, the structure of verses and strophes. But the
attempts to find the original rhythmic form of Hebrew poetry
have had little success. There is no such syllabic metre in
Hebrew as in Greek, Latin, and Arabic; the accented
syllable is regarded as long whether its vowel is short or
long, and all syllables not under the tone are short.
Bellermann started correctly on this basis (says Meier), but
he adopted the misleading syllabic structure of iambi, tro-
chees, &c. Saalschtitz added the error of putting the chief
stress on the penult, and likening Hebrew poetry to classic
hexameters. He could not carry out this theory without the
greatest arbitrariness. But these writers are nearer the truth
than De Wette and Ewald, who will admit no definite
measures of time and rhythm in Hebrew poetry, but only
‘ rhythmic prose ’—which is no poetry at all, and ‘the pure
movement and dance of thought ’—which gives no intelligible
idea. The ruling opinion at present (i.e. in Meier’s day) is
that parallelism of members constitutes the only definite
characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Even if this were true it
would be a designation according to form rather than
thought. But it is not true; much of what is clearly poetic,
Ewald and Ernst Meter 15

like Jotham’s fable, presents no parallelism of structure.
Besides, in both the prose and poetry of all peoples we find
this same parallelism of members prevailing; it is merely
more constant and regular in Hebrew than elsewhere.

Chapter III, ‘ The particular form of Hebrew poetry,’

The Hebrew lyric has rhythmically measured verse-lines
and regular strophes, for

(1) Philo, Josephus, and other ancient writers expressly
testify to this.

(2) It is indubitable that the Hebrews had melodies. See
Amos 6. 5; Isa. 5. 12, &c. The '¥ must have been sing-
able ; this leads at once to regularly recurring strophes.

(3) The Hebrews danced to the music of their songs.
See Exod. 15. 20, 1 Sam. 18. 6, &c. This implies rhyth-
mically articulated melodies and regularly constructed
strophes.

(4) The alphabetical poems are themselves strophes, each
letter introducing a rhythmic passage of equal compass with
every other. (Meier's opinions on strophes will be noticed
in Chapter VI of this book.)

The simple theory of Hebrew versification is as follows:
The rhythmic time-measure, the musical beat, which is
always present in songs, is indicated by the accent. This
is the same in poetry as in common prose. It is the position
of certain syllables in the verse which gives them the chief
tone and accent, and that position depends on the poet’s
pleasure. Thus time and rhythm are duly set in relief. The
law of pausal accent, which is of a purely metrical nature,
gives the poet great freedom. Also short syllables with a
by-tone may be lengthened at will by the accent. Then,
too, the music may glide over a long syllable, or dwell on
a short one, and thus make the rough places plain. Finally,
our present Hebrew text is not always pure, but has suffered
mutilations, transpositions, glosses, and insertions; by putting
76 Systems of Hebrew Metre

into operation the rules of metre foreign elements may be
more readily detected and removed.

We. perceive now that in Hebrew the same simple law
holds as in German, where accent alone determines the
rhythm. More precisely, in Hebrew every verse-line has
fwo tone-syllables or rises. Any number of other syllables
that can be pronounced within the given duration of time
may either precede or follow these. The language can thus
become very pictorial. The time-beat and the qualitative
measure correspond in general to a double iambus and its
variations x 4x; 4x x; xx +4. It may be re-
duced to three syllables, 4 x ©; x 43 or even to: two,
++. The three and the four occur together at Ps. 33. 9:

sTOy MY NIT AM WX NW 8S

and in Ps. 39.9 there are two consecutive verses of two
syllables each:
‘yon dor
These measures may interchange at will in every line and
strophe, only the time remains says the same. To speak
musically, all Hebrew verses are in 2 time, the natural beat
of the march, one, two! The sastia movement can be
regarded as ¢ time. There may be additional unaccented
syllables at the beginning, or the end, or both.
For an illustration of the metre take Samson’s answer in
Judges 14. 18:
mbsya onesn xd
Sntn onxyp xd
In Judges 15. 16 the rhythm is very precisely measured :
pynton sien syn onda
:wox Ads tnton syonn tnds

In the song of Lamech, Gen. 4. 23 f., there are three strophes
of four lines each; doubtless the music prolonged the third
Ewald and Ernst Meier 77

line of each strophe, giving to the seghols the effect of two
rises: o> wo, 35, Job.

By means of the unaccented syllables this fundamental
measure permits a very free treatment. The lines are usually
from four to eight syllables long, at times nine or ten, two
syllables being accented, the rest pronounced rapidly. A
similar rhythm prevails in the Eddas, in many German folk-
songs, and dlso (though this is more regular) in Greek tragic
choruses. In general the matter is very simple; a few
examples are given in the Appendix (i.e. Meier’s).

(These are Psalms 9-10, 23, 34, 39, 44, 93, 114, 148,
together with Job 3. ‘I give Psalm 114.)

Vorstrophe.
, \
Ta Bezet Jisraél vurouUn
/ \
mimmizraim -u-vu
, \
bet Jaqob -u-
, \
meam loes, u-u-
, \
hajeta Jehuda vu-vuUH
, ‘
leqodscho, -v-
/ A
Jisraél -uU-
, A
mamschelotav. -uU-
Gegenstrophe.
wale \
1b. hajjam raa, vuroun
7 \
vajjanos, -uU-
/ \
hajjarden -u-
, ‘
jissob leachor. vruUn

7, \
heharim ragedu UU - UU
78 Systems of Hebrew Metre

ke-clim, -vu-
gebaot -u-
ki-bene zon. -uu-
Vorstrophe.

2a. ma leka hajjam vu-un
ki tanus? -v-
hajjarden, -u-
tissob leachor ? uoruun

/ \
heharim tirqgedu -#UU UU

ke-elim? awe
gebaot -u-
ki-bene zon? -vuUn-
Gegenstrophe.

2b. __millifne adon uyewe
chuli arez, -u-u
millifne age
eloah Jaqob! vruen
hahofki hazzur vu-uUR
agam majim -vu-u
challamisch -u-

, ‘
lemajeno majim. uw-uu-—vu

Whoever cannot perceive in this fine ode, says Meier, the
marked rhythm and the precise metrical measure of verses
and strophes will never hear the same from any Arabic
Ewald and Ernst Meter 719

poems, for these are no more regularly measured than the
above psalm. Then follow some interesting remarks on the
strophic structure of the psalm which must be adjourned.

The alphabetic restoration of Pss, 9-10 (pp. 76-90)
resembles Bellermann’s in many particulars, though it often
suggests other emendations, and always neglects to give credit
to its predecessor.

Meier’s closing remarks on verse-structure are important :
* Any one who reads and divides the Hebrew text in accord-
ance with my translation of the Psalms will readily find out
for himself the syllables to be accented. With Proverbs and
Job this is easier, owing to the close and regular structure.
But one must forget the /oo regular scanning that moves in
stiff precision (das im steifen Tritt und Trott fortgehende
Scandiren); we must put a little study first on the German
folk-songs or the Wiebelungenlied, and, led by the melody, we
must discover the rhythm which fits the words, By way
of example here is a little 2-toned dance-song :

Auf der Alb hat’s einen Schnee
Und im Thal hat’s einen Reifen $
Mein Sch4tzle will trutzen,

Tau desgleichen.

Now if one should scan that, after the fashion of certain
modern song-books, in prim trochaic paces,

Auf der Alb hat’s einen Schnee, &e.,

all musical euphony and genuine rhythm would be dis-
pelled.’

The critics of Meier with one voice cry out against his
breaking up of the text into such minute portions. ‘The
first objection against this hypothesis,’ says Kuenen (Z7x-
80 Systems of Hebrew Metre

leitung 3. 23), ‘is of an aesthetic nature; are not such short,
skipping lines as he professes to find everywhere in the Old
Testament wholly unacceptable? If they occurred wth
others we should have no reason to deny their existence,
but it seems incredible that they should have been used
exclusively.’

More curtly Schlégl (prize essay, p. 26): ‘It is plain to
any one that Meier’s versicles are nothing but verse-
commas.’

I am inclined to reply, What of it? If Meier has dis-
covered the true rhythmic movement of a given poem, is it
not in the main a matter of indifference whether we read
the text, with him, in 2-toned lines, or with Sievers in 4-toned
lines, or with Ley in 8-toned lines? One might as well
argue against Ginsburg’s Psalier because it is printed stichi-
cally. Or, to take a closer parallel, it is only the unreflecting
who would, fail to perceive that Mrs. Hemans’s Bernardo
del Carpio (cited above) is in the ‘common metre’ of
hymnody. :

There is no doubt some danger—but this is a different
matter—that one who looks for 2-toned measure everywhere
will insert accents where none are needed. It is really
astonishing that Meier should have started from the resem-
blance between Suabian folk-lore and some portions of
Hebrew poetry, and then have made a colossal leap to the
uniform movement of a// Hebrew poetry, not scrupling to
alter the text when the theory demands it (see his ‘ Poetical
books,’ passem). Shall we not expect to find, rather, that
each species of poetry has its most natural and appropriate.
thythm? For my part I draw an opposite conclusion from
the sublime sentence in Ps. 33. 9 to that which Meier
presents thus in his preface:

‘It needs no argument that the Massoretic accents, in-
cluding especially the pause-accents, must often be aban-
Ewald and Ernst Meier 81

doned. For instance, in Ps. 33. 9 the form ah stands where
plainly according to the rhythm my is to be read:

Ki hu amar eee
vayehi, 2% 2.

hu zivva Amine
vayaamod, DRL

If a nursery tale were before us it might be drawled out
like that. But reading for the sense, and emphasizing only
the proper words, as in English, we shall mark the energy
of the divine fiat lux:

7 ,
For he spake and it was done;

, ,
He commanded and it stood fast.

v , , ,
STO MY NT | MN ADR NWT 13

Despite this excess of uniformity and some minor defects,
Meier’s system deserves more regard than it has received.
It makes an advance over Saalschiitz and Bellermann by the
freedom of its movement. In a multitude of cases it antici-
pates the metrical divisions given to the Hebrew text by the
latest writers. It comes closer to the scansion which I have
endeavoured to develop in a natural way in the inductive
chapter of this book than any of the other systems we have
thus far examined. Also it must be added, in fairness to
Meier, that he is incorrectly represented (by Kuenen, for
instance, uz supra) to hold that the poet may put into a
single verse as many unaccented syllables as he pleases.
Schlégl (p. 26), though writing in Latin, is careful to cite
here Meier’s exact words: ‘as many as can be pronounced
within the given duration of time’—‘ waihrend der angege-
benen Zeitdauer sich aussprechen lassen’ (from Meier, p. 25).
The meaning of angegeben here is not altogether clear in
itself, but it seems to indicate the equal duration of every

COBB G
82 Systems of Hebrew Metre

foot in a given verse (strophe). This is made still more
probable on the next page (26): ‘These measures may
interchange at will in every line and strophe ; only the time
remains always the same.’ If the word Zé in this sentence
is correlative with Zer/dauer in the previous quotation, like
a musical deaf and measure, this observation of Meier’s is of
the first importance.
CHAPTER IV
LEY AND BUDDE

Tue association of Ewald and Meier in the last chapter
was simply chronological, though to be sure there is more
of a genetic connexion than the latter is willing to admit.
But now that we have come to our own generation, I place
in the same category two names, Julius Ley and Karl Budde,
that belong together by the larger affinities of their metrical
tendency, although they are often criticizing each other in
matters of detail.

It must have been some gratification to Ley that he lived
long enough to change the current of hostile and often ill-
considered opinion which set so strongly against his theories
in their early stages, and to be recognized as a@ founder, if
not ¢he founder, of present-day metrical science. Perhaps
the change was as much in the theories themselves as in his
critics; a change altogether to his honour, since it repre-
sented a continual welcome of new light; comszstencte’s a
jewell was not spoken of the soul in its apprehension of
truth.

The long succession of his books and essays on Hebrew
verse-structure extended over thirty-five years, until hislamented
death in December, 1901. Nor did it cease even then, for
elaborate papers which he had prepared on various branches
of our subject have since been published in Stade’s Zectschraft
and in the Studien und Kritiken. ‘He has done more to
establish correct views of Hebrew poetry than any other

G 2
84 Systems of Hebrew Metre

since Lowth’ is the verdict of Professor Charles A. Briggs
(Study of Holy Scripture, p. 369).

Professor Ley’s first book, which appeared in 1866, was
devoted mainly to an investigation of alliterative forms in
Hebrew poetry, which he compared with those in Old and
Middle High German. He sought to show that such forms
are strongly marked in the poetical passages of the Pentateuch
and of other pre-Davidic(!) literature, that they grow less
prominent in the psalms of the Davidic age and the proverbs
of Solomon, and that they merely survive in the latest com-
positions. The very statement of the thesis shows how far
criticism has travelled in the last four decades ; Ley himself
left this early work far behind, and indeed soon abandoned
alliteration as a cardinal principle of Hebrew verse-structure.
It is noticeable that in his latest published essay he assigns
these same ‘proverbs of Solomon’ to a later date than that
of Deutero-Isaiah +.

As the bibliography at the close of this book is arranged
by years, not by authors, it will be convenient to group
together here references to the principal publications of
Dr. Ley.

Articles in Reviews.

‘ Jahrbiicher fiir Philologie und Padagogik.’ 1871, 1872.

‘ Neue Jahrbiicher fiir Philologie und Padagogik.’ 1891,
1893. 5
‘Studien und Kritiken” 1877, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1899,
1903.

‘Zeitschrift fiir die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft.’ 1892,
Ig0T, 1902.

Books.

Die metrischen Formen der hebraischen Poesie. Leipzig,

1866. 8°

1 Apparently; see Studien und Kritiken, 1903, p. 183. But perhaps
‘aus spiterer Zeit’ has an indefinite meaning.
Ley and Budde 85

Grundziige des Rhythmus, des Vers- und Strophenbaues in
der hebrdischen Poeste, Walle, 1875. 8°.

Leitfaden der Metrik der hebraischen Poesie, Walle, 1887.
82,

In the last-named work he amends and simplifies his
system in accordance with growing experience, and with the
criticisms especially of Professors Eduard Riehm and Adolf
Merx. He also gives a metrical analysis of the entire first
book of Psalms, with copious notes.

But his chief book is the Grundziige, which extends to 266
pages (there are but ninety in the Le¢g/aden). This contains,
besides a comprehensive argument for the presence of rhythm
in the Hebrew writings, and what might be termed a grammar
of the whole subject, a thorough analysis of seventy psalms,
chosen from all the five books. Then follows a similar
treatment of Gen. 4, 23, Exod. 15, Deut. 32, Judg. 5,
2 Sam. 22, and Lam. 1-4. The general position is so well
stated in the brief Introduction that I present the substance
of it at this point.

The Massoretes deserve great credit for their vast and
varied labours on the text of the Old Testament, but still
they could not give a faithful picture of the original speech,
which had been a dead language for centuries, and was
known to them only through traditional recitals and through
ceremonial songs and prayers in their schools and syna-
gogues, What they could do and did was to fix with greatest
precision in perpetual moulds every tone and syllable as
their learned predecessors had handed them down. Now
such a stereotype process contradicts the very nature of a
living, progressive speech, and it is incredible that Hebrew,
during the entire thousand years of development within
which the Old Testament was composed, preserved the
precise cast that the Massoretes have given to it. On the
86 Systems of Hebrew Metre

contrary, there are plain traces even in the consonantal text
of altered pronunciation and new formations.

Still, the present text offers a good foundation for investi-
gating a higher antiquity, and the Massoretic tradition is
right in the main as to the determination of the tone-
syllable—a matter in which nearly all languages show great
tenacity. With regard to the vowels, it enables us to
approximate to the actual pronunciation of the last centuries
before Christ, provided we make use at the same time of the
general Jaws of language, the related dialects, and the
Septuagint transcription of Hebrew names and words.

But, on another side, the mischief of the Massoretic
tradition becomes evident. In taking pains to fix also by
all sorts of accent-signs the cantillation used for centuries in
divine service they have not only effaced many traces of
genuine rhythm and metre, but they have made that very
accentuation an insurmountable obstacle in the path of
subsequent inquirers who strove to discover the metre by its
means, and many of our recent savants have felt obliged to
infer that Hebrew poetry never had any rhythm or metre at all.

Fortunately, however, there have survived from the earliest
times evident marks of rhythm and metre in archaic poetical
endings and in various remnants of verse and strophe divi-
sion. On the basis of these, and of an enlarged knowledge
of metre, it has become possible to rediscover the leading
features (Grundzige) of metre in Hebrew poetry, and to
reproduce in good degree the verses and strophes of its
original form. The metre corresponds to the peculiar genius
of the Hebrew language, for although we find analogies of
this and that sort in the classics and in the Old German, we
must distinguish carefully between analogy and essence.
Musically similar all these languages may be, and external
resemblances to anapaests and paeons do actually occur in
Hebrew, but it is characteristic of the latter that one metre
Ley and Budde 87

(by which Ley means a single foot) can form a gradation of
tones which rise through the measure and culminate in the
tone-syllable. Symmetry is the fundamental principle of
verse and strophe structure. The verse shows a regular and
symmetrical articulation such as occurs in almost no other
language. The simple strophe, composed of similar verses,
bears little resemblance to the outward form of a classic
strophe, but in content it excels it by the intensity, the depth,
and the warmth of the emotion expressed, while yet it falls
short of the classic strophe in respect to the distinct articulation
of its members.

Thus reads the programme which Professor Ley sets before
us. If he can make good his claims the existence of a
Hebrew metre is established. We proceed from the promise
to the performance.

Chapter I treats of ‘The rhythmic laws’ under the fol-
lowing subdivisions :—(1) Existence of rhythm. (2) The
accent as the principle of rhythm in Hebrew. (3) The
gradation in accentuation. (4) Character of rhythm. (5)
The constitutive principle of metre in Hebrew poetry.
(6) On the cadence. (7) Onelision. (8) On the anacrusis
(Aufiakt).

The main argument, which did not go long unchallenged,
is in section 1, which I reproduce with some fullness.

Although the testimony of the church fathers, Origen,
Eusebius, Jerome, &c., as also that of Philo and Josephus, is
explicit that hexameters and tetrameters are present in Old
Testament poetry, it must be received with caution, quite
apart from its unscientific confounding of Semitic and
classical prosody. For it has an apologetic aspect, as
though sacred must not be put below heathen poetry, and
as though the origin of classic metres must be ascribed to
Hebrew poets, But on the most general grounds it may be
88 Systems of Hebrew Metre

asserted that no poetry can be unrhythmical which is bound
up with song, music, or dance, and this relation in Hebrew
is witnessed by the psalm titles, and by the very words for
song, which seem to be derived from the idea of orderly
recurrence that distinguishes poetry from prose.

If one should disregard the accents and vowels as of late
origin, still the numerous consonant endings that occur
exclusively in poetry point to a rhythmical need which can
only be explained by rhythmical structure ; see Appendix 2
(Ley’s) on the relation of the poetical endings to rhythm.
Looking only at the outer form of verses and verse-sections
one observes a mutual resemblance which bespeaks a certain
feeling for symmetry. On the average the number of words
in the various verses or sections is equal, often also the
number of syllables. It is not, however, the counting of
words that decides the measure of the verse-sections, for
often three long words correspond to four shorter ones, or
two longer to three or four shorter.

Again, it cannot be denied that the older poetry appealed
to the ear rather than the eye, and circulated orally for
generations before being committed to writing (compare the
Homeric poems); hence it must have had a rhythmical
measure for the ear, and the symmetry that the eye now
discovers is a result of that rhythm.

In fact, it can be asserted @ prior? that Hebrew poetry
must have had a rhythm, because no poetry is without it;
even the rude beginnings of poetry among savage and un-
civilized races do not lack it.

Until recently, therefore, it was the general belief that
thythm was present in Hebrew poetry. But since all attempts
to establish it have failed, it has become the fashion, espe-
cially since De Wette, to deny it altogether.

(Then follow tempting promises of what is to be expected
from his own book.)
Ley and Budde 89

Instead of giving the remaining sections 7” ex/enso I will
follow the outline which Ley inserts at the close of Part II,
and which, in the absence of index and table of contents,
may serve as finder to the telescope. If any apology is
needed for so extensive a treatment it may be found in the
popular ignorance of what is really taught by the Metriker.

Or Ruytum.

§ 1. Principle of rhythm.

Rhythm in Hebrew poetry, as in German, is determined
by the tone (accent)!. Accented syllables count as /ongs
or rises, unaccented as falls. True, the accentuation is also
determined, as in German, by the significance (logical prin-
ciple) of the syllables, since that syllable which is significant
to the concept receives the tone, especially in the verb; but
because in Hebrew the word-stems mostly consist of three
consonants and two syllables the quantity and the position of
the syllables exercise an influence on the accentuation.

§ 2. Relation of rhythmic accentuation to that of the text.

The accentual signs have also their value for rhythm, but
only so far as they serve to determine the tone-syllable,
This determination is fully confirmed, not only by the tradi-
tion, but by the character and forms of the language itself.
To be sure the signs come from a later time, when the
language had long ceased to be a living one, and they did
not receive their final form until the end of the tenth century
A.D.; none the less, the accentuation cannot have differed
much when the language was in full use. On the other
hand, these signs have no significance at all for actual rhythm
‘when they serve to indicate the height and depth of the tone,
and also to determine the relation of the word in the sentence
and in the verse-period.

1 This identification is Ley’s. His words are ‘durch den Ton
(Accent) bestimmt.’
go Systems of Hebrew Metre

These last relations connect closely with cantillation,
a song-like recital, which gradually developed into a full
system in the early centuries of our era. Cantillation
originated in the synagogue, and was quite foreign to the
living language ; the so-called poetical accentuation of Psalms,
Proverbs, and Job is subservient to cantillation. But cantilla-
tion knows no genuine rhythm; often it contradicts the
latter, and it has caused it ‘to be wholly forgotten. Its
influence, moreover, has wrought disturbance and confusion
in the matter of the tone-syllable, and while the grammatical
rules for accent are generally valid in this matter, they need
a closer investigation, to which we now proceed.

§ 3. The rhythmic rules of accentuation.

(1) Every significant word has at least one tone-syllable.
The tone falls either on the ultima or the penult.

(2) Untoned syllables that precede the tone-syllable are
subordinated to it, and constitute with it a sort of tone-
system; they form, so to speak, a scale of rising tones,
culminating in the tone-syllable. Without respect to quan-
tity or quality the tone-syllable itself always has the most
marked accent, the high fone; the untoned syllable standing
next before it has a higher tone than that which stands in
the third or fourth place. But such a gradation is possible
only when the distant syllable is less important than the
nearer one; an extreme example of the rule is onioan->2,
Ps. 107. 273 an example of the exception is iriexpm,
Ps. 19. 7, where the vowel of the antepenult belongs to the
stem, and that of the penult is only tone-long ; in such cases
the antepenult receives a tone of its own (deep tone).

(3) If the antepenult is of egual weight with the penult
it may take the deep tone, especially when the suffix has
the high tone and the antepenult belongs to the stem, e.g.
pny, Ps. 107.17. Here the tone-syllable of the suffix
is not strong enough to subordinate the antepenult which
Ley and Budde QI

belongs to the stem, which hence receives the deep tone
and makes a climax for the previous syllables. But we may
call such syllables doubtful, as their accentuation usually
depends in part on their position in the verse.

(4) The preformatives 3, }, 5, b (for 1), whether with
sh’va or a vowel, and the particles DN, NN (sign of acc.),
1 (BN) never have the tone, and are prefixed as proclitics
with makkeph.

(5) The poetic forms wa, 15, 105, 139, *Sx, a, “sy, “dy
are toneless if a tone-syllable follows, otherwise accented.

(6) The other monosyllabic particles (with which are
grouped "wx and man) and the monosyllabic pronouns are
regularly toneless and proclitic, but sometimes take the tone
when they stand before untoned syllables, and the sense gives
them a certain emphasis. If two of these occur in succession
only the second is accented.

(7) xb in the midst of a verse-section never has the tone,
but in composition or combination with other particles, and
at the beginning of a verse-section, it may have.

(8) At the end of a verse-section, where the feeling for
rhythm is strongest, two successive tone-syllables are in-
‘admissible ; either the words must be united by makkeph, or
the first word throws back its accent to the previous syllable,
providing that contains a stem-consonant.

Exception. ‘The two tone-syllables may stand if the first
is closed and has a vowel letter, since such a syllable is
regarded as containing three time-measures (morae), two
for the rise and one for the fall, e.g. 5 a9, Ps. 19. 2.
Nun paragogic may produce the same effect.

(9) Vocal sh’va suffices to separate the two tone-syllables,
or a poetic ending like zo is sometimes inserted.

(ro) When an accented monosyllable ending in a vowel
is immediately followed by a tone-syllable beginning with &
or 7 the first tone is elided and the two words are combined.
92 Systems of Hebrew Metre

The same thing may occur at the end of a section even
when the second word is a disyllable accented on the
ultima, as DIN ‘23, Ps. 31. 20.

(rr) Unimportant particles, pronouns, and adverbs, voca-
tive and interjectional phrases may stand without an accent
at the beginning of a verse-section, as anacrusis (Au/takf).

(12) The tone-syllable may be followed by one syllable,
and only one, as a cadence. In the midst of a section such
a cadence may be wanting, but at the end it seems to be
a rhythmical necessity. To effect this the accent is thrown
back (a volatilized syllable taking a full vowel), or poetic
endings are added, or the final vowel is extended (gedehn?)
so as to make with its consonant three morae.

Or Verse Buitpine.

(1) Every tone-syllable with the cadence that follows and
the untoned syllable that precedes makes ove metre. No
attention is paid to the number of untoned syllables. Even
a single arsis may form a metre, as in Ps. 33. 9:

STON MY NTN IN NWT DS

This line, with but twelve syllables, is the metrical equivalent
of Deut. 32. 1, which has nineteen, not counting in either
case the sh’vas and hatephs:

232 S9DN PANT youn TAA) DSVA WNT

But the character of the verses is entirely different; the
second is prolonged and pathetic, the first animated and
expressive. Accordingly the poet’s art depends not only
upon establishing @ metre that is correct as to the requisite
number of rises, but also upon the formation of ¢ke metre
that corresponds to the contents. Observe, for example,
in Ps. 2, the first two strophes (vv. 1-6). Verse 1, an
exclamation, is animated and brief; verse 2, a description, is
Ley and Budde 93

more prolonged; verse 3 depicts the fury of the kings in
quick and decisive’ movement ; vv. 4-6, representing Jahve
in his heavenly rest, over against their rage, have a much
more uniform movement throughout, save that the second
half of verse 5 is more rapid, as befits the divine wrath.

(2) Several metres combined in one whole form a verse.
The extent of the verse thus depends on the number of rises
or tone-syllables. In the articulation of the verse the funda-
mental principle is the symmetry of the parts. This sym-
metry of metrical members bears the same relation to form
as the so-called parallelism bears to the sense. By this
means the verse-structure presents an art-form as individual
as it is beautiful.

(3) One may regard the octametrie long line, which
numbers eight rises, as the oldest verse of the Hebrews, and
in a certain way, as the fundamental form, from which the
other kinds of verse have developed themselves. The
articulation of this verse is either dichotomic, that is,
it divides itself into two equal verse-sections of four rises
each, or trichotomic, containing three parts of three, two,
and three rises, There may be still other permutations.

Examples. Ps. 89. 10-16, seven successive verses of
this type, divided in 4 and 4. Ps. 7.9, 3 +243.
Ps. 6. 7, 2+3+ 3. Ps. 11.5,3+3+2.

(4) The most frequently recurring verse is the hexameter,
which counts six rises. It is either

(2) dichotomic, in two sections of three rises each, as
Ps. 92. 2, or

(4) trichotomic, in three parts of two rises each, as
Ps, 20. 10, or

(c) less often, with a freer movement, 4+2 rises (Ps.
86.8) or 2+ 4 (Ps. 31. 16).

(3) The decameter counts ten rises and permits a varied
articulation :
94 Systems of Hebrew Metre

(2) Two halves of five tones each, subdivided into 3 +2
(Ps. 19. 8) or 2+ 3 (Ps. 42. 5).

(6) 3+4+43 (Ps. 133. 2) or 4+2+4 (Ps. 50. 1), or some
other arrangement in threes (two different ones appear in
Ps, 42. 9, 10).

(c) Five equal parts of two tones each (Ps. 14. 4).

(6) As an independent verse the pentameter is used only
in the elegy (Lamentations) ; in the Psalms it stands in close
union with the preceding or following verse, to whose
articulation it belongs; e.g. Ps. 14. 5, 6 is 2+3—3+ 2, and
Ps, 2.10, 11 is 3+2—3+ 2, for pax*oaY should be joined
by makkeph.

Remark. Just so with a half verse of the octameter or
hexameter; it can form no verse by itself, but must always
be connected with the following verse; thus Ps. 23. 1 must be
read with verse 2, making a decameter 4+ 3 + 3.

(7) The octameter, hexameter, and decameter may also
be lengthened by a half line, but the full strophe keeps the
regular measure; thus Ps. 12. 6 and 7 make three octa-
meters. (This is an error; the scansion gives only 12+ 10
tones. Corrected in Letffaden.) In Ps. 146. 6-9 each
verse has nine tones; thus each pair of verses forms three
hexameters.

(8) Longer verses than those just mentioned are not
known to strophic poetry. Hence we must often begin a
new line where the present text does not indicate the division ;
thus Ps, 1. 1 is 2+ 2+ 2—3 +3.

(9) All these varieties of verses are also used catalectically,
i.e. they are shortened by one beat; sometimes, but seldom,
by half a line. A catalexis, less often a hyper-catalexis,
serves to show the close of a strophe or poem.

The following psalm may serve to illustrate the rules that
have been given.
Ley and Budde 95

Psalm 127.
,
sow’ xd nin ox |] 12 wha Voy sed | md naa’ xd ath ow
rdw spe and | vy
,
12 | Duyn onY sox || nad vinx | os wien | 045 wb.
, , ,
ses sen yy
, , , 7 7 7
tyoan a ay | ova nin nbny mon,
, I / bt ,
rotyon Ya 73 | naa ta msn 4
4
pa 9S | wd NYY oA ates ne | NY ade | ah we
yw ov ns

The psalm consists of four strophes of two hexameters each.
Note the recession of the accent in m3’, verse 1, ‘bon,
verse 2, to prevent a concurrence of tones, and the insertion
of the article in jon, verse 3, for the same reason. Observe
the ambiguity of tone in the monosyllabic particles, xb,
wy. 1,55 j3, VV. 2, 4.

The remainder of the Outline treats of strophe-building,
and will come up in Chapter VI.

In his later book, Lezt/aden der Metrik der hebrdischen
Poeste, Ley reaffirms and illustrates the principles of the
Grundsiige, often in identical words. ‘There are some sub-
tractions, chiefly under the head of the strophe, but no
material additions, except a clearer treatment of the cesura
and an inclusion of the construct state among the frequent
proclitics.

So far as the same examples are chosen in the two books
the analyses are very similar; compare, for example,
Ps. 2 in Grundziige, p. 248, Lett/aden, p. 31. We must
not allow ourselves to forget that these elaborate rules for
96 Systems of Hebrew Metre

metre are merely assumption and hypothesis as yet, and
that they remain so unless they can be justified by the natural
reading of the Hebrew text. Apart from the theoretical prin-
ciples laid down, it is fair to ask whether the metrical
divisions and reconstructions of the eighty poems in the
Grundziige commend themselves to the reader’s ear and
judgement. The answer is of a somewhat mixed nature ;
in the homely English phrase, the author’s fingers are too
often thumbs. We have already come in contact with his
arrangement of Ps. 33. 9, which improves upon Meier’s eight
tones by reducing them to six; there are, however, but four
needed for a natural and forcible delivery.

Of course such psalms as we took up first in the inductive
chapter are so obviously rhythmical that one cannot go far
astray in scanning them. It is not surprising, therefore, that
Professor Ley’s conclusions on Pss. 67, 82, and 100 (he
does not examine Ps. 54) are practically identical with our
own, though his terms are different. But when he reaches
the difficulties instead of facing them boldly he evades them.
It will be remembered that out of the three middle books
the following were mentioned in our first chapter as specially
irregular: Pss. 45, 55, 62, 64, 71, 75, 79, 83, 84, 86, 95,
102. After analysing all the sixty-five psalms in those three
books, and setting aside the twelve just mentioned I was
curious to see how Ley would treat them. To my great
surprise only two of the twelve were to be found in his list,
namely, Pss. 75 and 83. It may be remarked in passing
that in Sievers’ extensive collection of Textproben not one
psalm from the three middle books is considered. This
collection, it is true, was gathered by Buhl with the avowed
object of including only those poems which are most prob-
ably metrical, but even in Sievers’ Stellenregister, which is
more generous in its scope, not a single reference is made
to any of the difficult psalms above named. Now, if we are
Ley and Budde 97

to draw conclusions respecting Hebrew poetry as a whole
our observations must take in facts of every sort, not merely
those that are kind to a particular theory.

But let us see how Ley explains Pss. 75 and 83. The
former he makes hexameter throughout, except verse 2,
which is 4+4. But surely there is no stress on the ‘3
which opens verse 3; that verse is 2 + 3, and just as evidently
there zs a stress on 59 in verse 4—that verse is 4+ 3. As
athnah falls on the penult in verse 5, the next word, a word
of five syllables, most naturally has two accents, so that verse
is 3+4. The next two verses are the first to come under
the so-called hexameter—they are 3+ 3; verse 8is 2+2+2
(so Ley). But the trouble culminates in verse 9, upon which
Ley remarks :

‘According to the metre the difficult and disturbing
sion p cannot be reckoned in; it is either a parenthesis or
simply a gloss.’

That is to say, she metre demands something, which is out
of order, for the very question before us is whether there is
a metre to make the demand. Grant the gloss, and still the
first line is too long, 3+ 4, and the second too short, 3 +2.
‘Two hexameters with compensation,’ says Ley. But this
theory of compensation whereby a long line may be followed
by a short line, and both be regarded as the metre of the
average line, was so riddled by the critics that Ley himself
dropped it, and announced the fact thus in his preface to
the Lettfaden: ‘The notion of compensations and substitu-
tions, since these indeed have given especial offence, has
been entirely given up.’

We are left, then, with the following consecutive feet in
Ps. 75. 2-9: 4+4, 243, 44+3, 34+4, 34+3, 2+2+2,
3+4 (+ gloss?),3+2. One can postulate, if he will, a
certain rhythmic movement in the psalm, but we have a right
to deny a regular rhythm or metre.

COBB H
98 Systems of Hebrew Metre

As to Ps. 83, it is only necessary to call attention to,
the fact that Ley sets out with the announcement that the
psalm contains five strophes, the first three with four hexa-
meters each, the last two with three hexameters each, and
then adds that ‘compensation’ occurs in verses 4, 5, 10, 11,
12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, i.e. in a majority of all the verses.
But as there is no compensation, Ley himself being witness,
the psalm is left hanging in the air, with its larger portion
unexplained. If these things be done in the green tree,
what shall be done in the dry? Ps, 71 is a desperate case,
and who can fathom Pss. 86 or 95 or 102?

As already mentioned, the Grundzige investigates ten
passages outside the book of Psalms; I will say a word on
the first of these, Gen. 4. 23, 24. In his fondness for octa-
meters our author makes the song of Lamech an octameter
distich. To do this he has to make a distinct pause between-
the construct ‘v9 and the governing noun qnd. Surely this.
is unnatural ; there are but three tones, as in English:

7 , , , 7
Wives of Lamech, give ear to my word.

The principles assumed as the basis of Ley’s system were.
at once assailed in the Studien und Kritiken, 1874, pp. 747-64,
by Professor Karl Budde, who thus, like Saalschiitz, began
to publish on this subject at the age of twenty-four. The
article, on ‘pretended metrical forms in Hebrew poetry,’
gives a running refutation of all previous systems from
Gomarus down, but spends its main strength upon Ley.
The Grundztige, to be sure, was not issued until the following
year, but already in 1871-3 Ley had laid down his theses,
both grammatical in general and rhythmical in particular, in
the Jahrbicher fiir Philologie und Pédagogih, and had pro-
mised a book which was to present the analysis of a body of
Hebrew poetry in accordance with his system. This promise
Budde treated somewhat flippantly, remarking that others of
Ley and Budde 99

the Metriker had pledged the same thing and failed, but that
doubtless we could count on success this time. Whereupon
the editor of the Studien, Professor Eduard Riehm, took
pains to set the matter right in a footnote. Ley had laid
before him the manuscript of the coming Grundziige, and
the substance of it at least ought to be published in the
interest of science.

Budde’s early criticisms are not set aside by the fact that
he afterwards partly changed his view; they must be allowed
whatever weight belongs to them intrinsically.

Recent authors, he says, have tried to solve the problem.
by postulates, and have believed themselves able to show
the necessity of metre before exhibiting its proofs. But all
such a prior? reasoning is easily shown to be untenable.
One asserts that all the oldest poetry is metrical, but this
rule has exceptions, as in Old Egyptian; the oldest German
poems, too, have only the faintest beginnings of a metre.
Analogies are unsatisfactory, for it cannot be maintained that
poetry without metre is unthinkable. No one would deny
the name of poetry to the odes of Klopstock and many
similar pieces which are destitute of metre in the sense of
a regularly measured cadence recurring according to certain.
laws.

Again, it ig maintained, for example by Diestel in Schen-
kel’s Bibellexicon, that Hebrew poetry must have been
metrical, because according to ancient testimony many songs
were accompanied by music. and dance. But though the
music of the songs must have a settled measure, why must
the text? There are thousands of instances to the contrary,
of which the most striking perhaps is the present practice in
the Anglican Church of singing the Psalms, translated quite
unmetrically, to the melodies of the choir, in such a fashion
that the same melody is cleverly adapted to every verse
whether short or long. (This is Budde’s own illustration.)

H 2
100 Systems of Hebrew Metre

It is yet more useless to point to the peculiar poetical
words, word-forms, and idioms of Hebrew poetry as distin-
guished from prose. If, as is claimed, these were invented to
fit the metre, whence the multitude of such forms that are
the precise metrical equivalents of corresponding forms in
common prose? The truth is that all elevated speech, as
well as poetry, demands its own characteristic diction, a
greater abundance of words and forms, a more melodious
diction than the language of common life. Julius Ley’s
recent essay in the Jahrdbicher on the poetical endings can
only establish at most a certain melodic cadence, not a
genuine metre.

By means of postulates this question can never be settled ;
rather, we must demand that every system shall draw its
justification directly from the poems themselves.

(Budde’s next ten pages criticize the earlier systems,
coming back to Ley at the close.)

In the system of Ley nothing is left to chance, everything
from greatest to least has its fixed law. We must marvel
either at the subtlety of metrical feeling among the Hebrews,
or at the acuteness which could discover such a system after
2,000 years. Every exception only makes a new rule, and
one is less inclined to object to the rules than to use them
against each other. It cannot be denied, indeed, that the Hebrew
language lends itself readily to such an attempt at metrical
system. By its compressed expression, each clause being com-
monly condensed into a word, by its frequent proclitics and
enclitics, its parallel clauses, and the like, it is quite easy to
produce symmetrical verses. But Ley’s arbitrary treatment of
the material passes all bounds. It rests entirely within his
pleasure whether a given word shall have two tones or one,
whether prepositions, negatives, even significant words shall
be toned or toneless, whether an accent shall retreat or
maintain its position. We must demand of any such system
Ley and Budde 101

that at least it shall preserve consistency, and not break over
its own rules with constant licences and exceptions. Now
Ley postulates, to begin with, various kinds of verse—the
octameter, decameter, hexameter, and pentameter. This is
only another way of saying what has often been noticed,
that a Hebrew verse usually contains five, six, eight, or ten
words. But at once we stumble on a host of exceptions.
The octameter is 4+ 4 tones, or 3+2+3, or 5+3, with
several other varieties; clearly these are feet of different
rhythmic value. In the next place, the octameter expands
to twelve tones, or is shortened to seven, with various other
changes ; the hexameter may have five, six, eight, or nine
tones. One may, with Ley, extol the manifoldness of
Hebrew verse-forms, but not the system that has to adopt
such a manifoldness, say rather lawlessness. (Here Budde
brings a strong indictment against the principles of compen-
sation and substitution, both of which Ley afterwards
surrendered.) One advantage, certainly, cannot be denied
to his exceedingly laborious and subtile work. He has called
attention to the frequency in Hebrew poetry of a certain equi-
poise of rhythm, which is very grateful to the ear, although
we must stand decidedly on the defensive if one would
make a metrical system out of this freely-moving rhythm.

So Budde wrote in 1874. One who reads his article
‘Poetry’ in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (1902) will find
an entire change of tone, marked by great courtesy to the
author whom he then criticized so severely. Each had
approached the other perhaps in equal degree.

The analyses in Ley’s two books are almost confined to
the Psalms. In later years he applied his theories to other
fields. ‘The metrical condition of the book of Job’ was
considered in Studien und Kritiken for 1895 and 1897.
A similar treatment of Isaiah, chap. 1, may be found in the
Zeitschrift fiir die Alttestameniliche Wissenschaft for 1902,
£02 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Part II, and of Deutero-Isaiah in Svudsen und Kritiken for
1899 and 1903. During these years his theories were being
gradually modified under criticism. ‘Ley has constantly
sought to perfect his system,’ said Budde in 1902.
Starting with the octameter as the unit of measure, which
expanded and contracted in the most elaborate fashion,
the manifest product of a modern professor's study rather
than of an ancient poetic genius, he has yielded point after
point till we find in his latest article on Deutero-Isaiah
a concession which has not yet received the attention it
deserves. ‘In the following analysis I have adopted, after
Grimme, two 4-toned lines in place of what I have called
an octameter ; moreover, in opposition to him, five 2-toned
stichoi instead of my earlier decameter.’

So, then, after fighting all his life for these complicated
rhythms, the protagonist of modern metrical science sends
us a message after his departure which reduces the whole
matter to a welcome simplicity. The life work of Ley now
joins on to that of Meier and Bellermann. How he also
comes to terms with Grimme we shall see further on.

A short specimen is here appended of the natural and
reasonable rhythm which Ley now finds in Deutero-Isaiah.
The only remark he makes on these five lines is that both
sense and metre call for a word after n'23n3, and he suggests
w2p>, Not even this is necessary, as the former word may
well have two tones.

Isaiah 40, 21, 22.
/ y y , , , / ,
| D3> wt TIA Yen | woen sabr wan wba ar
HINA Mow onan xn
e - , 4 , ,
| Ddan3 maw | pram ain by awn 2
, , , , , id
inae> br&s phnom | oe pt non
Ley and Budde 103

‘As the reader perceives, the common text gives three perfect
4-toned lines and two perfect 6-toned lines. Deutero-Isaiah
as a whole is much more regular than the Psalms.

In 1874 Budde closed his polemic which we have been
following in these words: ‘ Perchance this attempt (i. e. Ley’s)
to point out fixed rhythmical forms in Hebrew will be the last ?
The future must reveal. The possible methods appear to be
about exhausted, and at all events a shattering of any one of
them may serve as a warning for successors, and as a summons
to caution for those before whom a new system is laid.’

The glove thus thrown down was taken up in 1882 by
Budde himself. He begins his article in the second volume
of the Zettschrift fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft by
alluding pleasantly to this change of base. Since 1874 a new
king had arisen who knew not Joseph; a system which we
shall examine in the next chapter had entered the arena, and
had caused Budde to react in Ley’s direction. Also, more
light had broken forth from the Word, for Budde himself had
discovered a ‘fixed rhythmical form’ in Hebrew poetry.
The book of Lamentations, he tells us, is a work of high
art, not on account of its acrostic form, which is merely
outward and mechanical, but from the peculiar poetic struc-
ture of its verses. This characteristic form was noticed in
a general way by Lowth and others, but was first described
accurately by Keil. (This is an error; see Introduction.)
In Havernick’s Znleitung, 1849, Keil gives a true account
of the metre; it has been more precisely analysed by Ley.
Each verse falls into two stichoi with plainly-marked cesura ;
usually there are three tones in the first member, and two
in the second. Thus Lam. 3. 4:

smoyy tay sy) wa nds

(Budde here analyses the first four chapters of Lamentations,
showing the great preponderance of the 3 + 2 line.)
104 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Chapter 5 has only verses 2, 3, 14 in this measure;
perhaps the author intended to work it over. We will call
the measure 4éné. There are three modifications of the
scheme which the poet himself seems to have considered
allowable, besides an occasional irregularity, like 4 + 3, which
may be due to an imperfect text.

(1) 4+2, as Lam. 2, 13a:

ade nan 75 now no THN nD
or 2+4, as Lam. 3. 56:
ssmynwd onmind yore ndyn bx myn “dip

(2) 2+ 2, when the first two words are long and weighty,

as Lam. 1. 1c:
rond ana mesa mw

(3) Apparently 2+ 3, but helped by a rhetorical pause after

the third beat, as Lam. 1. 10c:

7b Sapa axa? xd amy wx

As to the first four chapters of Lamentations, then, it may
be asserted that the writer intended the 42d verse throughout,
not simply ‘as a rule,’ or ‘for the most part.’ Later editors
overlooked this, hence occasional lapses in our text. The
question now arises (Budde continues), what induced the
adoption of this especial form? Is it arbitrary, or are there
appropriate grounds for this and no other rhythm just here?
We must compare its occurrence elsewhere.

Isa. 14. 4-21 has just this same rhythm, which is carried
through with most painstaking diligence, e.g. in vv. 13-15:

\| oY ys orden | Jabs nade aris 13
\| Nos ov | bx 122155 Syd
indy ova | who wa wy

rphdyd mdse | av nnd by nbpee 1,
syd may by | wn dike dx t8 15
Ley and Budde 105

Ezekiel has a whole group of such pieces ; chaps. 19. 1, 14;
26.17; 27.2, 32; 28.12; 32. 2,16. He uses the very
term £nd@, A large part of these chapters is in 3 + 2 measure.
Jeremiah has it in chapter 9, which refers to the professional
mourning women. Examine carefully vv. 9-21. In ver. 20
the &7zzd is plainly audible :

wna xa nbn mo ndy +5
imam pina pn bby nrand

There are similar ‘Klagelieder’ in Jer. 22; Amos 5.1;
8.10; Mic. 2. 4, &c.; Hos. 6.9 ff.; Isa. 1. 21ff.; 22. 3, 4;
23.16; Obad. 6.7, &c.; Nahum 2. 1-3; Zeph. 1. 4, 5;
2.12 ff; Isa. 47; Ps.137. A like rhythm appears in
other poems that are not lamentations, as Pss. 42-43;
19. 8 ff.; 27. 1-10; 65. 5-8; 84; 101; 121; 126-131.

It is admitted, on the other hand, that David’s lamentations
over Saul and Abner are not in this rhythm, but perhaps the
only offctal kind was that of the mourning women. When
the kina was once established, it may have been used as
a mere form (like any verse-form with us) for other com-
positions.

To sum up: we have recognized, and separated clearly
from all others, a definite sharp-cut verse-form ; the Anown
use of this distinct form reaches back into far antiquity.
The members of this verse are separated in sense, not by
a merely formal metre. The parallelism of members becomes
here a sub-parallelism, the two members uniting to form one
meaning. But the kind verse must have arisen through a
modification of the even-membered verse. So, then, the
Hebrew verse in general (as well as the stichos) must have
had poetical form, not merely rhetorical character; a decisive
refutation of strophe-building on the stichos,

(The remainder of Budde’s paper argues against strophic
theories as a whole, and closes with the wish that scholars
106 Systems of Hebrew Metre

would desist from that branch of investigation until we have
penetrated more into the nature of the Hebrew verse.)

This article, which fills fifty-two solid pages of the Zer?-
schrift, produced a profound impression, and brought to a
belief in ¢ha¢ variety of Hebrew metre some who had been
as sceptical as Budde was at the outset. Doubtless Paul
Ruben goes too far in the way of needlessly disparaging other
workers, when he uses the following language (Jewish
Quarterly Review, 1899, pp. 432 f.): ‘In the midst of all the
sleepers, one man has remained awake: Budde, whom we
may justly style the discoverer of the Qina-metre.’ But there
will be larger assent to what he says directly afterward :
‘Nobody who really wants to grapple with the difficulties
of Old Testament criticism can afford to neglect the study
of these epoch-making articles.’ The plural in this last word
points to other papers by Budde in the same Journal. In
1883, he devotes seven pages to an examination of Jer.
38. 14 ff., which fortifies his position materially. For ver. 22
introduces the mourning women, and gives their very ézxd,
which is in 3 + 2 measure.

In the volume for 1891, pp. 234-47, Budde finds fifteen
verses of 3+ 2 form in Deutero-Isaiah, including the whole
of chapter 47. ‘Only the form of the kina remains,’ as
most of these are triumph songs. But Isa. 1. 21-31 is
genuine kina in substance as well as form.

In the volume for 1892, pp. 261-75, he answers Duhm’s
criticisms in his /esaza, and goes through each verse of
Lam. 1-4, marking every verse-member, and emending the
text where he thinks it necessary. Often he defends the
received text, for example at Lam. 2. 20:

na nddiy nb moa mA AN

onan ‘by oma ow? mbdoxn ox
END) IND UN wp? 247" ON
Ley and Budde 107

‘Endings, 73, o'npy; halves, nuvam, op, IN. Lohr
would cancel ob, I see not why: it is neither contrary to
the metre (necessary rather), nor to the grammatical form,
see Gesenius-Kautzsch, 135, 5. Rem. 1, &c. Instead of
pupa 1 (Ewald), op should stand, even for the metre’s
sake.’

Ley always claimed that Budde’s kina verse was his own
elegiac pentameter; whereas Budde always held that it was
an important variety. For the latest arguments of Budde,
see Hastings’ Dzctonary (Poetry); for those of Ley, see
Studien und Kritiken, 1903, p. 183. To an onlooker the
two contestants seem to agree betler than they think; for
the question before us does not concern the history of a
custom, but the form of a verse. As to priority, both go
back to Bellermann, as I have shown in the Introduction,
‘since writing which I find that Konig (S#stk, p. 315), who
attempts to show that Bellermann anticipated Budde, has
cited, oddly enough, a quite general remark of the former
on Lam. 1, instead of the crucial passage on Lam. 3, which
occurs at p. 137. On the whole, the metrical points in
which Ley and Budde came to a final agreement are more
numerous and weighty than their differences, and we may
continue to consider them together as marking an important
epoch in the study of Hebrew rhythm.
CHAPTER V

BICKELL AND THE SYLLABLE

We have reached the parting of the ways between the
advocates of accentual and of syllabic metre; it may be
advisable to look back and see what connective threads of
progress can be traced thus far. In the first place, Beller-
mann’s forward step has never had to be retracted, namely,
that which broke with the tendency to scan Hebrew verse by
quantity after the fashion of the classic metres. ‘Though for
convenience’ sake, he continues to use the terms hexameter,
accent, &c., he is careful to explain that they indicate only
a general resemblance, while Hebrew has its own peculiar
verse-measures, which developed according to its own laws.
He is remarkably catholic, also, in avoiding insistence on
a rigorous uniformity of structure: ‘There is probably not
a single long poem, with always equal, precisely correspond-
ing poetic feet.’ Of the other authors examined, Saalschiitz
only says that Hebrew rhythm resembles hexameters, while
Ewald, Meier, Ley, and Budde agree more closely with
Bellermann.

In the second place, each verse is composed of feet whose
rhythm is marked by the accent, the prevailing foot re-
sembling the iambus (x4). Saalschiitz’s attempt to prove
a predominant dactylic or trochaic metre has failed ; but his
criticism is valid against the slurring over of sh’va and pattah
furtive; so x exchanges with x x-4, x 4x, xxx, as
the main variations; which is precisely what we find to be
Bickell and the Syllable 109

commonest in English verse. In Ewald’s system, as shown
above, there is a gap between the single foot and the verse-
groups. He pays very little attention to the inner rhythm
of the verse; still, his affinities are with Bellermann rather
than Saalschiitz. He contrasts the primitive Greek 4x | 4 x
with the ‘ progressive’ Oriental rhythm xx | x4xx | xx,
and although he denies that primitive Hebrew knew ‘this
fine interchange of short and long syllables,’ the examples
he gives from Deborah’s song, and David’s lament, are
prevailingly iambic or anapaestic.

Meier’s basis is a ‘double iambus and its variations.’
Ley’s general principle places the tone on the ultima, or the
penult, and his ‘gradation,’ ‘tone-system,’ and ‘cadence,’
produce the various feet symbolized by x 4, x x4, x x 4x,
Budde’s most regular kinds, as Isa. 14 and Lam. 3, are of
the same order.

In the third place, there is perfect uniformity as to the
formal principle of the rhythm, which is found in the stress
of the tones, not in the number of the syllables. _Beller-
mann’s language on Ps. 119 deserves to be cited again.

‘Since the Hebrew does not count syllables, but weighs
feet, not even these octostichs can be named by syllables,
or else it would be obvious to term them dodecasyllables,
the majority consisting of six-foot lines, with two syllables
to the iambic foot’ (which is precisely Bickell’s arrangement
in the Carmina). ‘But this,’ Bellermann continues, ‘ would
be to mistake the genius of the Hebrew language.’

Saalschiitz, so far from holding to an exact syllabic metre,
remarks that for many cases no strict rule can be laid down.
‘There reigns herein, as I am free to confess, almost total
arbitrariness. J have followed my ear withal, and what it
offered me as most natural and unforced, this I have
accepted.’

Ewald is very earnest and repeated in his opposition to
I10 Systems of Hebrew Metre

syllabic metre. Although he states that a Hebrew verse
averages eight or nine syllables, his range of variation runs
from five to eleven. Meier says, ‘There is no such syllabic
metre in Hebrew, as in Greek, Latin, and Arabic’; on this
point, Bellermann is not quite orthodox enough to suit Meier,
who fails to see that the former’s ‘iambi,’ &c. are so-called
feet, not strictly metrical feet.

Ley goes so far in disregard of syllabic rhythm that he
counts only the rises, and permits any number of unaccented
syllables with them". Budde, in Hastings’ Dictionary of the
Bible, distinctly ascribes to this opinion of Ley’s ‘the over-
whelming weight of probability.’

We come to the consideration of Professor Gustav Bickell’s
syllabic metre, therefore, with a mass of authorities, if not
of evidence, against him. There is to be added also on
the same side whatever value attaches to the investigation
of the three middle books of the Psalms in the first chapter of
this treatise; for even such regularity as we found would
have been greatly diminished had we insisted on syllabic
uniformity.

But then, Professor Bickell would accept heartily what
was said near the close of that chapter: ‘If all Hebrew
poetry is metrical, its metrical principles are not yet manifest,
and at all events are very different from those of English
poetry. He would observe that this is exactly what we
ought to expect; that Oriental poetry should be compared
with its own kind, not with Occidental; and he would
proceed to draw out, with great ingenuity, the parallels
between Hebrew and Syriac verse. We have the testimony
of an opponent (Dr. Schlégl, in the Le#erarisches Centralblatt,
Tg02, no. 1) that no one can hear Professor Bickell recite
Hebrew poetry without being impressed with the wonderful

A posthumous article of Ley’s takes the contrary position.
Bickell and the Syllable IIL

smoothness and melody of the verses as he divides them.
Another opponent (Professor Briggs, Biblical Study, pp. 288 f.)
makes the following frank acknowledgement: ‘Dr. Bickell,
whose familiarity with Syriac literature and Hebrew scholar-
ship are well known, has, as must be admitted, carried out
his theory with a degree of moderation and thoroughness
which must command admiration and respect. The theory
is attractive, and demands fuller consideration than can be
given to it here?

Turning from opponents to advocates, we might refer
(see lists in Déller and Schlégl) to a. dozen or more scholars
who have espoused—some of them warmly—the contention
of Bickell ; and we should not need to include the name of
Merx, whom Bickell partially follows, or those of Gietmann
and Duhm, who partially follow him. It must not be for-
gotten, however, that we are concerned rather with evidence
than with authorities, and primarily with the truths of a
system instead of its errors.

Bickell, like Ley, has written three principal books, and
many periodical articles, on Hebrew metre..

Books.

Metrices biblicae regulae exemplis illustratae. 1879.
Carmina Veteris Testament metrice. 1882.
Die Dichtung der Hebriéer. 1882.

Periodical Articles.

‘ Zeitschrift fiir katholische Theologie.’ 1878, 1880, 1882,
1885, 1886.

‘Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft.’
1879, 1880, 188r.

‘Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes.’
1891, 1892, 1893, 1894.
112 Systems of Hebrew Metre

It is interesting to trace the origin of a system that has
had so wide consequences. In the preface to his earliest
book, Bickell gives the needed information.

‘Already in the year 1868 Cardinal Pitra had pointed
out the right way, in his most learned book, Hymnographie
de I’ Eglise grecque. For while he proved that the ecclesiastical
odes of the Greeks are metrical, and are derived from the
madraschi of the Syrians, he conjectured that these very odes
originated from the sacred poetry of the Hebrews. He was
persuaded to this opinion, especially by the resemblance of
the madraschi to the hymns of the Therapeutae described
by Philo. Following this path, therefore, I have compared
as closely as possible the poetry of the Hebrews with that
of the Syrians—a kindred and neighbouring people—and
I have adapted (adapfavz') the same metrical rules to the
Hebrew songs which I had proved to belong to the Syriac
(S. Ephraemit Syri Carmina Nisibena, pp. 31-35):

At the close of Bickell’s second book, he gives two
extended specimens of these hymns of Nisibis, the metre of
which closely resembles that of our modern English church
hymns, the first in 7. 4, the second in 6.6. I give a stanza
of each: 7 7 ¥
Zu‘, mavto, men barno%o,

Dof kad ‘abdav,

Niro d’mortteh mamlekh

‘Al beryoto!

Mo domé leh “nido
L’hav damké Xekhibo,
V’dome mavto l’chelmo,
Of nuchomo Vcafro!

It will be observed that the first example is iambic, the
second trochaic. The simplest way to state the chief con-
Bickell and the Syllable 113

tention of Dr. Bickell is to say that all Hebrew poetry may
be arranged (and should be) under one or the other of these
types. Nothing could be more revolutionary, or more
important if true. In the Zectschrift der d.m. Gesellschaft,
1881, p. 415, Dr. Bickell states his general principles more
fully, but yet succeeds in condensing them into a single
sentence (the italics are his, the figures mine):

‘Hebrew Metric rests on the same foundations as the
Syrian, and the Christian-Greek that arose from the latter ;
namely, (1) on the counting of syllables, (2) the disregarding
of quantity, (3) the regular interchange of toned and untoned
syllables, (4) the identity of metrical and grammatical accent,
(5) the coincidence of the verse-lines (stichoi) with the
divisions of the sense, and (6) the connecting of homogeneous
or heterogeneous stichoi into symmetrical and mutually equi-
valent strophes.’

Points (2) and (5) agree with all the systems we have
examined ; point (4) favours Bellermann and the rest against
Saalschiitz ; point (6) goes over to the next chapter; points
(1) and (3) constitute the peculiarity of the system of Bickell.
By far the greater part of his books is devoted (and wisely)
to illustrative examples; the rules themselves, and the special
cases and exceptions under them, have to be picked out from
his various writings, especially the Carmina Veterts Testamentt
Metrice. But this work has been admirably done already
by Professor Johann Déller (pp. 42-6 of his Rhythmus,
Metrik und Strophik in der biblisch-hebréischen Poeste,
Paderborn, 1899); it is best, then, simply to follow his lead.

General rules for counting the syllables.

Helping vowels (e.g. the seghol in yom) and half vowels
(vocal sh’va, compound sh’va) are regularly uncounted.
Pattah furtive is never counted.

A helping vowel can never receive the accent; a half

COBB I
114 Systems of Hebrew Metre

vowel only when in the same word a second syllable follows
with the accent, and with a full vowel; thus in Psalm 1. 3
mny is pronounced véhajd.

Rules for the metrical accent.

In general it coincides with the Massoretic accent, but
there are certain deviations:

1. At the end of the verse the accent is regularly drawn
back to the penult, hence verses with an even number of
syllables are trochaic, with an odd number iambic.

Exception (not given in Déller, but see Carmina, p. 228):
A verse of four syllables joined with one of seven syllables
in either of the schemes 7. 4|¥4. 4 or 7.7% 7 |7- 4 is
assimilated to the iambic rhythm, and admits the accent on
the last syllable.

2. The first and second persons singular of the Perfect
may take the accent on the ultima, not only after vau conver-
sive, but also in other cases.

3. The masculine plural Imperfect of verbs ayin vau and
ayin yodh in the Kal and Hiphil forms may have the tone
on the ultima even without appended nun; e.g. 132) in
Psalm 28. 5 is pronounced in two syllables, 7’dcnd.

4. The imperfect singular feminine Kal of verbs ayin vau,
ayin yodh, and ayin doubled is oxytone. Isa. 23. 16 °2D soz.

5. But also the imperfect plural masculine Kal of the
same classes of verbs may have the tone on the ultima. The
same is true of the third person plural and third singular
feminine perfect Kal of verbs ayin doubled, even when no
vau conversive precedes.

Rules for appending syllables.

1. The fe of the Hiphil form is often retained in the
Imperfect and Participle; e.g. Ps. 1. 3 my’ is pronounced
Bickell and the Syllable TI5

Jjehatslich; Ps. 14.2 wm mehdshil. Less ofien the he of
the article is retained after prepositions.

2. At the end of the construct singular the vowel 7 is
appended; at the end of the construct plural feminine the
vowel ¢; as Ps. 4. 7 WN 077; Ps. 12. 7 nN zmrothe.

3. The full forms aku or ehu are put in place of the
suffix-forms o and av; also emo may be read for em, or em
for emo. Similarly we are often to read mznnz, l’mo, 8’mo for
min, I’, 6’. Examples: Ps. 21. 10 nyba j’vdlle'émo. Ps.
12. 8 91 minni.

4. The vowel 7 is resolved into its original 7, as Ps. 17. 7
yo byéminekha.

5. In a similar manner the contracted forms wElohim,
b’Elohim, v’Adonai, &c., are put in place of the original
forms ve-Elohim, be-Elohim, va-Adonai, &c. By suppression
of the initial vowel these forms may be contracted still
further to v’--lohim, &c.

6. The article may be inserted where it does not stand
in the Massoretic text, e.g. Ps. 4. 7 ON is to be read
ha-’6m ’rim.

4. Ani and anokht are often mutually exchanged, e.g.
Ps. 73. 23 "Ni v’andkhi. So, too, bh and lebhabh, e.g. Ps.
13. 6 ‘35 lebhdbht’. Very often the same exchange occurs
between Jahve and Jah.

Ruies for neglecting or rejecting syllables.

A few such rules appear under the previous head in (3),
(5), and (7). In addition:

1. Vowels that have been inserted on account of the
accent following in the next syllable may be resolved again
into the half vowel, as—

(a) With the proclitic particles b’, I’, k’, v’, e.g. Ps. 1.2
mb) v’/éjla!. This never takes place before suffixes.

1 Doller’s v’/aza is an obvious error.
I 2
116 Systems of Hebrew Metre

(4) Similarly, the vowel a of the Imperfect forms before
suffixes, e.g. Ps. 18. 43 Opnwey v’esh’gém. Especially before
afformatives, e.g. Ps. 14. 4 NTP gard.

2. In like manner the vowel reduces to a helping vowel
(and is then elided) in the plural forms panim, damim, jamim,
and in the dual jadhajim, especially if suffixes follow, e.g.
DD p’xim, YD p'néka; so too the preposition -Y if joined
with a suffix, »Sy ‘Za.

3. The vowel a of the stem syllable, followed by a syllable
of inflection, gives place to a half vowel if an immutable
stem syllable precedes, o'an13 hokh’bhim.

4. Pausal forms are not permitted in the midst of the
stichoi, and are to be discarded if they appear in the Masso-
retic pointing; on the contrary, at the end of the stichoi
they are to be supplied (as a rule) when the Massoretes have
omitted them.

5. The initial vowel of a word may be suppressed after &
if not more than two consonants precede the next full vowel,
e.g. Ps. 4. 5 N m’ru. But the only monosyllables that
can lose their vowel are M8 (sign of accusative), by, by,
DN, 1%, FN; thus in Ps, 2.5 12 te is read in two sylla-
bles -2z j’dhdbber; and in verse 3 WONMDYONN has four
syllables -th més ’rothémo.

6. The proclitic particles va, min, shé may dispense with
the doubling of a following consonant, and exchange their

full vowel for a half vowel; not, however (except sh), before
suffixes or the article.

4. Final 7, as sign of the first person, may fall away unless
in a monosyllable or preceded by a half vowel, e.g. Ps. 2. 5
Nad) ndsakhi..

8. All suffixes (not simply those of the third person plural)
may be annexed directly to the feminine plural, e.g. Ps. 55.
II MNIWDIN hométha.
Bickell and the Syllable 117

g. The 7 sound characteristic of the Hiphil is rejected, e.g.
Ps, 2. 10 town Adsh’ lu.
10. The copula} does not always become z before b, f,and m.

The student who is familiar with Syriac will recognize the
source of many (by no means all) of these rules and excep-
tions. It is alleged by his opponents that Bickell makes
countless other exceptions in a purely arbitrary fashion.
An elementary treatise like the present is hardly the place
to go into that matter in detail. It is more to the purpose
to give a few specimens of the results attained. Here it will
be necessary to reproduce Bickell’s transliterations pretty
closely; the Hebrew text does not sufficiently suggest the
peculiar forms adopted. The examples are to be found in
the Carmina, except those from the Book of Lamentations,
which the Carmzna printed in dodecasyllables. Bickell sub-
sequently came halfway to Budde’s view of these kina
passages, and urged the latter to meet him by recognizing
the syllabic relation of 7+ 5 throughout these pieces. His
contention (in the Wiener Zeitschrift for 1894) is that much
less violence is done thus to the text than Budde had found
necessary. The paper is well worth reading; I shall return

to it,
Psalm 54. Te P| Bi Re

3 Jah, b’sim ’kha hosi ‘eni,
V’big’ burat ’kha t’dineni!
4 Elohim, s’ma' r’fillati,

7 / 4
Ha’zina l’imere fi.
5 Be ae ee
5 Ki zarim qamu ‘alaj,
oes te ene
V’aricim biq’su nafsi ;

, a ,
Lo samu ’Lohim l’negdam.
118 Systems of Hebrew Metre

7 , ,
6 Hinne ’Lohim ‘ozer li,
4 4 4”
Adonaj b’som ’khe nafsi !
ve FO NP
4 Jasub hara* lesor raj.

Jy J, ,
Ba ’mittekha hagmitem !

8 Bin’daba ezbecha Hakh ;
Odi sim’kha, Jah, ki thob.
9 Ki mikkol cara hie ‘lan-

5 1, ¥ ZL; 7s
Ub’oj’baj ra’ta ‘eni.

Psalm 100. Fett per

1 Hart'u 1 -Jah, kol haarg ;
2 ‘Ib’duet Jahva b’simcha !
Bou Panay bir'nana !

3 Du, ki Jahvd hu’ ’Lohim!

, , ,
‘Asanu, v’lo anachnu,
, , ,
‘Ammo vegon mar‘ito.
ay , ,
4 Bou s ‘arav betoda,
yo? rt
Chacerotav bit’hilla !

, , ay.
Hodu lo, barekhu s’mo!

5 Ki thob Jah, I ‘olam chasdo,

4 - ,
V’ ‘ad dor vador munato.
Bickell and the Syllable 119

Psalm 80. 8.8 | 8. 8]/8. 8 | 8.8.
(I give the first three verses only.)

2 Ro'e Jisrael, ha’zina,
Noheg kehagcon Jehosef !
Joseb hakk’rubim, hofi‘a
3 Lifne -Frajm y-Binjamin -M’nassi!
‘Orera et g’buratikha,
Ur'kha Ifsu‘ata Hanu |
4 Jahva Cebaot, h’sibenu,

ye pate a
V’haer p’nakha vnivvase‘a!

Psalm 64. 4-7 | 7717-71 7-7-
(Verses 6 and 7 only. Conjectural additions in italics.)
6 Jechazz’qu lam dabar ra,
Jesapp’ru lithmon moq’sim.
Am’: mi jira lanu?
Akhen Jah jira \amo!
4 Jachp’su ‘olot, jomeru :
Tammonu chefes m’chuppas!
Veqireb igen cheger,

, , ,
Velibbi ’adam ‘amogq.
120 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Canticles 4. 4. 4. 6.

(Verses 12-14, + denotes emended words. The letters
under 14 indicate transposed clauses.)

12 Gan na‘ul alt,
’Choti khalla,
Gal na‘ul, Fajn +ch’tuma !
13 Selachajikh
Pardes +rimmon
‘Tm peri megadim.
14 K'farim, +v'radim,
a Nerd vekharkom,
¢ ‘Im kol ‘’¢¢ lebona.
é Qana v'ginn’mon,
d Mor va’halot,

ov PY ate Do
e Im kol rase b’samim.

Lam.3. 7.5 | 7-57 5
(Verses 1 to 6.)

I "Ni hage’bar, raa ‘oni,
Besebt ‘ebrato;

2 Oti nahag vajjolakh-
Lechosekh v'lo ’or;

3 ’Akh bi jasub, jehafekh,

Jado kol hajjom.
4

20

21

22

Bickell and the Syllable 121

Billa b’sari vetori,
Sibbar ag’motaj.

Bana ‘alaj vajjaqqaf ;
Rosi, utlao.

B’machsakkim hosibani,

, ,
Kemete ‘olam.

Lam. 4. 15] 7 Be

(Verses 20 to 22.)

, vs ,
Ruch -ppenu, m’sich Jah, nilkad,
vif?
Bis *chitotamo,
VE gt »f
Aser ’amarnu b’gillo:

Nichj4 baggojim.

Sist vesim’ chi, bat- Dom,
Josabt baareg !
Gam ‘alajk ta‘bor kos Jah;

DP as Fs
Tisk’ri v’tit ‘ari.

Tam ‘avonekh, bat Cijjon,
Lo "\chaglotekh ;

Paqad ‘avonekh, bat "Dom,
‘Al chattotajikh.

The question that comes now before us is, as always:
What are the truths in this whole system which connect it
with those that preceded, and form a positive addition to the
122 Systems of Hebrew Metre

sum of knowledge on the subject? Having ascertained the
agreements, the divergences can be passed upon more
intelligently.

At the beginning of this chapter the main points of agree-
ment had been three. (1) Hebrew verse is not measured by
quantity. Bickell accepts this without reservation; it is his
point 2, as above. (2) As the result of combining the
opinions of Bickell’s predecessors the prevailing foot of
Hebrew metre was asserted to be the iambus or anapaest ;
less often the trochee or dactyl. Bickell gives equal place to
oth tambus and trochee; this is a difference of degree rather
than of kind. How far from vital it is appears from Bickell’s
volie-face respecting the Book of Lamentations, as we shall
presently see. (3) The formal principle of rhythm was
found in the stress of the tones, not in the number of the
syllables.

It is very commonly supposed that Bickell counts syllables
and not tones, but this is an utter mistake ; he counts both,
and the entire melody of his rhythm is derived from the
sequence of tones, not syllables; whether consciously or
otherwise, the only advantage he secures by making the
syllables regular is to make the tones more regular. Now
he is right against Ley and Budde so far as this, that poetry
cannot be measured by simply counting the rises and dis-
regarding the falls. Every one who knows poetry well
enough to recognize it will assent to this after a little thought ;
in fact, one variety of English burlesque used to turn on the
absurdity of the contrary opinion. I may perhaps be for-
given by my graver readers for the barest allusion to a piece
that was current some forty or fifty years ago, and that began:

“In Manchester a maiden lived,’

It is too long to quote, but I will venture to set down here
a trimeter distich (!) which is much older:
Bickell and the Syllable 123

Wasn’t Pharaoh a rascal?
He wouldn’t let the children of Israel go three days’

. / . . /
journey into the wilderness to eat the Paschal.

So far as this bears against the doctrine of Ley and Budde,
it is only meant to show that they have been incautious in
statement. Evidently they do not mean to say that zo account
is to be made of the thesis in a foot, but that the exact
number of syllables passed over between the rises is im-
material, because the voice either hurries or lingers as the
case may demand, the attention being fixed on the next arsis
and not on the intervening syllables. But is it not true that
metre is measure, i.e. definite measure? What is it, then,
that is measured if not the number of syllables in a foot?
The analogy of music gives the answer. It is not syllables
or even accents. It is “me; strictly speaking, the flow of
time, its waves. Take a piece of dry prose like Euclid’s pons
astnorum (English version). Accent it according to any
scheme you choose to adopt you cannot make rhythm or
metre out of it, But rhythm in music is a regular recur-
rence, a pulse-beat that can be measured in terms of time.
The composer hurries or lingers at will, writing two half-
notes, or twelve sixteenth-notes and a quarter rest, but the
inexorable law of time governs him; against its Jars he
dashes in vain. He may indeed change the time in the course
of his composition, but if so he must indicate the change,
and adhere to the new measure until he indicates another
change. The poet is under the same law. In place of
writing a symbol like 2 or 2 at the beginning of his poem
he so arranges the first lines that they show the rhythm
he intends to follow. In Tennyson’s ‘ Break—break—break’
the three syllables of the first line are precisely equivalent
to the nine syllables of the third line. Would Kuenen
124 Systems of Hebrew Metre

have denied that the poem is metrical, though he so often
identified metre with quantitative metre? or would Bickell
undertake to cut line 3 to match line 1? That which is alike
in both lines is the flow of time. This whole matter is
expounded admirably in Lanier’s Sczence of English Verse,
chap. iii.

It is now plain that in all the books and systems of
Hebrew metre which we have examined the one statement
that gives the exact truth in this particular is the brief phrase
already quoted from Meier’s Form der hebrdischen Poeste,
p- 25: ‘Any number of syllables that can be pronounced in
the given duration of time.’ The reason just alleged for
calling Pharaoh a rascal does not miss being metrical because
it has many more syllables than the question, but because it
has foo many to be properly uttered in the same space of
time. Condensed as follows it might serve, even though
having about twice as many syllables as the question:

, 4 ,
For not letting Moses celebrate the Paschal.

Returning now to Bickell, he is to be commended, as well
as Ley, for mellowing with the years and approaching the
position of his opponents. When he prints the Klageleder
in alternate lines of seven and five syllables each, instead of
in solid twelve-syllable lines, it looks at first like the same
thing in two forms; and so it would be if this were all. But
examination reveals the fact that he has reversed his measure ;
the trochees have become iambics. In the Carmina the first
line of Lam. 3 ran thus:

, 4 , , vi ,
’Ni haggaber, raa ‘ni besebth ‘ebrato.

This reminds us of Browning’s ‘One Word More,’ being
in the same rhythm, with one foot added :

‘ Rafael made a century of sonnets.’
Bickell and the Syllable 125

But the new version of Lam. 3. 1, as before quoted from the
Wiener Zeitschrift, reminds us of some of Paul Gerhard’s
hymns.

I make bold to claim that not even Ecker, the fierce
antagonist of Bickell, who has ‘counted the syllables’ and
found more than 6,000 textual alterations of the Psalter in
Bickell’s version, has damaged the system before us so
seriously as has the author himself by means of this remark-
able change of base. There are 242 lines in Lam. 1-4.
In every line the metre has been radically altered, while yet
all of Bickell’s rhythmical principles have been retained,
a clear indication that the permanent element in those prin-
ciples consists not in the assignment of trochees and iambics,
but in what the author holds in common with his prede-
cessors. In Dr. Bickell’s article on the book of Lamenta-
tions, to which reference has been made (Kritzsche Bearbetiung
der Klagelieder), he gives great praise to Budde for ‘ estab-
lishing the kzwd@ metre with discretion and consistency,’
adding: ‘So far as I see he has found universal agreement
in respect to this matter.’ He distinctly gives up the 12-line
verse not only in Lamentations but elsewhere, giving no hint,
however, of the radical change in the character of his verses.
‘My deviations from Budde,’ he proceeds, ‘ are of a secondary
nature. First, I apportion seven syllables to every long verse,
five to every short verse, while he, as also Max Lohr, the
latest commentator, counts instead of the syllables the (so
unlike) words, and in case the second part of the verse has
an equal or a greater number of words than the first he is
led to needless alterations of the text. Besides, he adopts the
arbitrary rule that the shorter verse cannot be comprised in
a single word. Further, I consider both members not as
segments of a long verse, but as independent, mutually
parallel stichoi, although the second because of its brevity
may often resume only a part of the first; a fact indeed
126 Systems of Hebrew Metre

which also occurs in parallel verses of an equal number of
syllables.’

To be sure these matters are secondary, but the charge of
altering the text comes with very ill grace from one who
has done the same thing in so many thousands of cases.
His late sensitiveness to the purity of the text is an en-
couraging sign.

As to the primary matter, it is certainly noteworthy that
Bickell’s tests so often come out at the same result with
those of his opponents. The first examples that I have
copied above in his transliterated forms are perfectly regular,
and are among the very psalms which went so smoothly
in our inductive chapter. Psalm 64 gave us trouble,
especially in vv. 6, 7; but Bickell, who always carries his
system through at whatever cost, secures the needed uni-
formity by means of eight conjectural changes in those
two verses. Psalm 71 is simplified more easily by making
ver. 21 telescope into ver. 20, and Psalm 79 by dropping
vv. 5c to 7 as inserted from Jer. 10. 25.

This last point is well taken, and is one of many wherein
even hostile critics have recognized the value of Bickell’s
researches for the restoration of the original text.

In regard to his syllabic theory in general, three things are
to be said.

(1) The chief argument he adduces in support of it,
namely, the analogy of the Syriac language, proves too much
for his purpose. A late branch of the Aramaic, developing
in comparatively modern times, and under the varied influ-
ences of the Roman empire and the Christian Church,
cannot give the law for the ancient Hebrew, nor confine the
living spirit of that freer tongue within its own uniform
moulds. Professor Briggs has put this in a nutshell, in
a passage directly succeeding the commendation quoted
before (Biblical Study, p. 259): ‘Dr. Bickell’s theory must
Bickell and the Syllable 127

be rejected on the ground that it does away with the differ-
ence between the Hebrew and the Aramaic families of the
Shemitic languages; and would virtually reduce the Hebrew
to a mere dialect of the Aramaic.’

(2) The text is adapted to the system, not the system to
the text. As was just now seen in the case of the Lamenta-
tions, Bickell does not read for the sense and draw out his
theory inductively ; he has a number of set forms, and the
text is like wax, to be shaped into one or another. No
doubt a certain ingenuity is displayed in discovering by
inspection the leading trend of syllables in a poem, but then
great violence is applied in curtailing or inserting others to
fit the measure. Kuenen criticizes this well (Ziledtung,
vol. iii, pp. 21, 24): ‘Manifestly, a complete change in the
vocalization and accentuation must go hand in hand with
this system. That is just what has been effected by Bickell,
who besides goes to work with great freedom in elisions and
in the counting in or out of syllables. ... The altered
vocalization of the text, with which the metric of Bickell and
Gietmann stands and falls, would have to be independent of
this metric in order to serve as its foundation. But this is
by no means the case. The rules for elision, &c., which
serve as a complement to the vocalization, are a part of
the scheme which Bickell has contrived for the sake of the
metric itself, and has repeatedly modified in detail for the
same end. As a whole it is improbable; in many points,
plainly, it is most arbitrary.’

(3) By their fruits ye shall know them. If everything
were granted to the system, it must be acknowledged that
it results in a very inferior sort of poetry, which smacks
rather of the midnight oil than of the free air of Palestine.
Who can believe that a poet ever recited Ps. 80. 3 after this
fashion ?

Z, fe Vises AN
Lifne -Frajm v’Binjamin -M nass4!
128 Systems of Hebrew Metre

or that the author of ‘Old Hundred’ was guilty of a line that
would sound like this in English?

Know that Jahve is Devine!

or that the bride in Canticles warbled thus to her beloved
(4. 16)? ; ;
Jizz ‘lu b’samav;
Jabo’ dod- l’gann-
V'jokhal pit megadav!

To touch upon a single point, the last word is one of a
multitude in which a full vowel has replaced sh’va. It

would matter little if the word were pronounced megadhav.
But the first syllable has a secondary tone, and this is just as

long as the previous tone: pr mé, which gives a drawling
effect, that recurs throughout these transliterated texts.

With regard to Bickell’s system as a whole, we should
discard entirely the syllabic feature, restore the lines to their
usual length, and accent them after the manner of Beller-
mann, Meier, and Ley. A valuable by-product will then
remain, in a goodly number of text-critical suggestions, and
happy restorations of presumably primitive forms.

The successful Metriker, if he ever appears, will patiently
go through the entire mass of these emendations, selecting
such only as approve themselves on rational grounds—and
being fully persuaded that they have no more genetic con-
nexion with the syllabic theory than Tenterden steeple
with Goodwin Sands.
CHAPTER VI

MULLER AND THE STROPHE

No doubt it would be a more logical procedure to con-
tinue the analysis of purely metrical and rhythmical theories
until the limit is reached in the twentieth century ; but it
seems better on the whole to take up at this point the
deferred subject of strophes. The chronological succession
has brought us to their chief exponent at the present day,
Professor David H. Miiller, of Vienna, whose results however
were prepared for by a series of predecessors. So the title
of this chapter would be more accurate if its terms were
reversed.

While Bellermann is the father of modern theories of verse-
measure, the epochal work on the strophe and its structure
was published in 1831 by Dr. Friedrich Késter, Professor
in the University of Kiel. It fills pp. 40-114 of the
Studien und Kritiken for that year. Its leading thesis is that
the same relation which parallelism bears to the members of
the verse is borne by the strophe to the verses themselves.
The strophe he defines in general as any union of several
verses according to definite laws. The analogy to parallel-
ism he draws out in particular (p. 48). The resemblance
between verses, like that between their members, may be
merely verbal, as in the alphabetical poems; oftener it con-
cerns the thought. Parallel verses, as well as members, may
occur in combination with those not parallel. Further, the.
succession of parts may be direct or in certain cross rela-
tions; it is not common to find more than from two to four

COBB K
130 Systems of Hebrew Metre

parts uniting to form the whole; on the other hand the parts
may be subdivided. ‘But lastly, strophes, like verses, seek
to avoid all uniformity both in the measure of their length
and in the number of their verses ; and in this freedom by
the side of regularity lies not only the beauty but even the
character of their structure. Freedom in the midst of order
was indispensable in the poetic symmetry of the Hebrews,
on account of the poverty of their language and the noble
simplicity of their ideas; it is only a language very rich in
vocabulary and poetic thoughts which can bind itself closely
to symmetrical forms without becoming tedious. Conse-
quently this is the point at which we must especially refrain
from systematically applying the measuring-rod of our
present-day poetry to the biblical writers.’

Elsewhere he gives a similar warning against demanding
from Hebrew strophes the regularity of classical composition.
We must keep in mind these admissions, even though Késter
seems to ignore them in his general summary.

I have thus far said nothing about the propriety of
assuming that parallelism of members is the underlying
characteristic of Hebrew poetry. The century and a half
of discussion since Lowth’s great essay has* modified his
conclusions somewhat. Parallelism is found to be too
narrow a conception to fit the facts. By no just use of
the term can it be stretched so as to cover all Hebrew
poetry. Lowth got over the difficulty by making the sub-
division which he called ‘synthetic’ parallelism so elastic
that all poetry not synonymous or antithetic could be
embraced under it?. But as has often been shown, this

1 (Praelectiones, p. 221): ‘Tertia species est parallelorum, cum
sententiae invicem respondent, non eiusdem rei iteratione, aut opposi-
tione diversarum, sed sola constructionis forma; in quam itaque referri
possunt caetera, quae in duas priores species non cadunt; parallela
synthetica libet appellare.’
Muller and the Strophe 131

surrenders the parallelism in a multitude of cases. I do
not know that the suggestion has been made before, but
it seems to me at least possible that the confusion arose
unconsciously from the geometrical conception of parallel
lines. When any two lines are rhythmical, and together
make complete sense, if the second is placed under the first,
a parallelism of members is supposed to result, as in Ps. 2. 6
(one of Lowth’s examples) :

Yet have I set my King

Upon Zion, the mount of my holiness.
We may be ready to grant to Késter that strophes can be
found almost anywhere in Hebrew poetry by combining
verses that are faraile/ in the same sense as such members.

He himself, as already shown, is far from claiming a fully
regular structure for the strophe system, Later in the essay
(p. 71) he observes that the strophic symmetry of Exodus 15
varies ‘so as not to become too painstaking.’ Again on
Job 3 (p. 78): ‘Such a sufferer could not complain in
methodical strophes,’ and once more on Zech. 9 (p. 108):
‘Contents, language and form of this oracle have some-
thing wavering or jerky; and upon this especially rests its
obscurity. Accordingly, the strophe formation is not quite
correct.’ But he pays too little heed to such limitations in
his concluding remarks, where he claims to have shown
‘that by the side of the parallelism of verse-members there
is found also a parallelism of verses; that the one necessarily
goes with the other; that consequently all Hebrew poetry is
more or less of a strophic nature.’ The qualifying phrase
‘more or less’ is the saving salt here.

What now exactly zs a strophe? The definition already
cited from Késter does not define: ‘any union of several
verses according to definite laws.’ What laws? The first
criterion which Késter finds is the refrain (p. 52f,). It
indicates either the beginning or the end of the strophe,

K 2
132 Systems of Hebrew Metre

One recognizes at the first glance, for instance, the three
equal divisions of Micah 3 by the opening words in wv. 1,
5,9. In the same way it is proved that Psalms 42 and 43
form a single whole by the repeated burden, Pss. 42. 5, 12;
43.5. Another clear case is Isa. 9. 7—10. 4, where the
breaks occur at 9. 11, 16, 20; 10.4, and thus according
to the verse-scheme 5, 5, 4, 4. But poems with refrains
are very few, and occasionally they are misleading, since
the phrase that is repeated may come in the midst of
a strophe, as in Psalms 56, 59. Accordingly the reliable
means for discovering strophic symmetry lies in the divisions
of the sense. On looking carefully at almost any piece, one
or more portions naturally separate themselves from the rest.
Using such a portion as a measure, the whole poem will
often be found to consist of several equal or nearly equal
parts, each forming a lesser whole. Look, for instance, at
Psalm 2; the last three verses are an address to the kings.
Three goes in twelve four times, and there are, as a matter of
fact, four regular strophes, of three Massoretic verses each.

Turn to the oracle on Tyre in Isa. 23; the opening refrain
is repeated in ver. 14, which thus marks the end of a strophe.
Using the remaining verses, 15-18, as a measure, we gain
four equal strophes, of four verses each, viz. 2-5, 6-9,
10-13, 15-18 (note the similar beginning of vv. 6, 10).

Where the matter is not so plain, other indications should
be looked for; as, the apparent turning-point of the whole,
the synthesis or antithesis of the thoughts, the change of
persons, or even repeated catch-words, like hark/ see! wo!
when, because, thus satth Jahve, in that day, &c. See Isa. 1,
5, Psalm 68, &c. It need not disturb us that some
strophes are more sharply separated by the unity of their
contents than are others.

Késter has thus given a working description, if not a pre-
cise definition, of the strophe. The bulk of the article,
Miller and the Strophe 133

Pp. 55-108, is devoted to illustrative passages given in a
German translation, each one being followed by a brief
comment. These examples are drawn from the Psalms, the
historical books, the book of Job, and the prophets. They
are selected with care and the divisions are natural; the
Massoretic text, with scarcely any changes, forms the basis
of the translations given. It may be said of the passages as
a whole, and of most of them separately, that they carry
conviction so far as this: the text breaks up easily into these
sections, which are often of equal extent,—and where it is
otherwise, as in Psalms 110, 45, 90, Judges 5, the author has
a good reason to assign. If such a sectional paragraph is
all that is meant by a strophe, Késter has proved his case as
far as he has gone; though he takes a great leap into the
unknown when he reasons from these few data to the whole
of Hebrew poetry. The examples which he analyses, in the
order in which he presents them, are these: Pss. 2, 139, 110,
46, 45, 27,90, 124; Exod. 15; Judges5; Job 3, 4; Mic. 4;
Hab. 1, 2, 3; Isa. 5. 1-7, 11, 21. 1-10, 47, 52. 1353. 12;
Jer. 9. 1-12; Zech. 9.

What Késter has shown, as is universally conceded, is that
each of these passages falls apart into subdivisions of nearly the
same length. The internal harmony of the parts is usually,
but not always, plain; at times one of these sections might be
personified as saying : If I be a strophe, where is my s¢repho?

The next author to be examined is Ewald, who carries
the matter a little further. Returning to his Dichéer des Alten
Bundes, I give an abstract of pp. 138 ff.

Nothing would be so perverse as to fail to recognize, by
reason of self-conceived presuppositions, the extraordinary
mobility and plasticity of Hebrew poetry. In any composi-
tion, one must be well on his guard against forcing through
a division into strophes, But where it lies visible in the very
sense and life of a song, we must not overlook it, for indeed
134 Systems of Hebrew Metre

the whole song loses its clarity so long as one does not see
into its articulation and development. To be sure, these
strophe divisions are not marked in the common text; selah
cannot be the chief or only sign of the end of a strophe.
The refrain doubtless is such a mark, but we must by no
means confine strophes to those so indicated.

It is difficult, in short, to recognize these divisions; one
must have a keen appreciation of every turn of the thought
in the author's mind; no general principle will solve the
case, for each new song is a problem in itself. Still, with
these inner signs, there often concur outer marks of the
strophe division, like the repeated call /ahve! Ps. 31. 2, 10,
15; or even a whole verse alike at the beginning or the end
of each strophe. Similarly the ‘Bless Jahve!’ at Judges 5. 2
(followed by the actual blessing in verse 3, and the animated
passage, vv. 4 ff.) is resumed in verse 9; ro f. being parallel to
3, and 11 ff. to 4 ff. Practice soon enables one to recognize
the genuine marks of a true Hebrew strophe.

(1) Zhe Song-Turn (Strophe) in itself.

(I am still condensing Ewald’s book.) An example of
a two-line strophe is 2 Sam. 3. 33 f., where the second line is
expanded into three members. Another and a favourite kind
developed two lines into five members, see the succession in
Psalm 29. A series of three lines appears in Gen. 4. 23 f.,
9. 25-7. In Ps. 2. 4-6 seven members alternate with six;
cf. w. 7 ff. In David’s last words, 2 Sam. 23. 1-4, four
introductory lines of unusual length, befitting the unusual
occasion, lead up to three strophes of evenly balanced long
lines. The three are distinctly marked and yet bound to-
gether—a fine example of a true strophe.

Strophes of from five to six lines each are relatively long,
so that true strophes seldom exceed that length ; if they do,
the oratorical prevails over the musical element; Isaiah and
Muller and the Strophe 135

his fellow prophets commonly form strophes of seven or
eight lines. Even in the Job speeches the strophes do not
exceed ten lines each save in the incomparable fullness of
Jahve’s address, where they reach twelve lines. An excep-
tion is when the song-piece is part of a larger whole, as in
the thirteen strophes of the Song of Songs.

(2) Strophes in their composition.

The one thought of the poet does not exhaust itself at
the first outpouring; after each flow of expression comes a
pause of repose. Both from the variety of poetic emotion,
and from the extent of time covered by Hebrew poetry,
we must expect the strophe to develop itself in its relations
very variously.

(2) An apparently unequal structure of the strophes in
a song is possible. Emotion, though not entirely unregulated,
cannot be confined within equal bars and lines; there are
times when it demands an unrestricted outburst. But over
all this must hover a comprehending unity.

The best examples are the laments, especially David’s over
Saul and Jonathan, 2 Sam. 1. 19-27 (swelling to six long
verses, sinking to two short ones). In Job, too, we have
in chapter 3 two long strophes followed by one short one;
in 13. 23-14. 20, three long strophes followed by two shorter,
which cannot be accidental (!). The song of joy or praise
takes just the reverse course; first brief, then fuller, see
Psalms 30 and 45.

(4) But by far the greater number of songs are composed
of equal strophes. (1) Songs in two strophes, which may
have two verses each, as Ps. 28. 6-9; or three verses each,
Pss, 31. 20-25; 1; 23; or four, Ps. 101; Job 11. 13-
20. Occasionally we find longer strophes; Psalm 91 has two
of eight verses each; Job 27. 14-23 has two of five verses
each.
136 Systems of Hebrew Metre

(2) Oftenest the song has three equal divisions, compare
the Greek strophe, antistrophe, and epode. Thus Pss. 7;
31. 2-19 (six lines each); 22; 35 (nine to ten lines
each).

(3) Sometimes there are four equal strophes, as Pss. 2;
12; 1 Sam. 2. 1-10; Isa. 38. 10-20,

(3) Antiphonal songs.

Examples: Exod. 15; Judges 5.

These are very fully treated, but are not essential to our
present purpose, as they give no additional light upon
strophic formation.

It is noticeable that Ewald recognizes as ‘genuine’ or
‘true’ strophes such as those in 2 Sam. 23. 2-4, which are
‘distinctly marked, and yet bound together.’ Also, while
claiming that practice soon enables one to recognize the true
strophe, he admits that this is very difficult, and that it
demands a keen appreciation of every turn of thought in
the author’s mind. Well may his humble followers ask,
‘Who is sufficient for these things?’

Next in chronological order comes Sommer, whose &7-
blische Abhandlungen, published at Bonn in 1846, treat at
large of the strophe; see the essay entitled ‘Die alphabe-
tischen Lieder von Seiten ihrer Structur und Integritat.’ He
classifies the strophes, with respect to the number of verses
contained in each, into distichs, hexastichs, heptastichs, and
octastichs. One of the common objections to regarding an
alphabetical couplet or triplet as a strophe is that in Psalms
111, 112, the alphabetizing is carried down to the single
stichos instead of stopping with the line. This objection
Sommer meets by presenting and defending the view that
it is the stichos, not the verse, which is the metrical unit
by whose combinations strophes are formed.

This thesis has been earnestly opposed, for example, by
Muller and the Strophe 137

Ley, Budde, Kuenen, and Schlégl, who hold that the verse,
not the stichos, should be taken as the basis of the strophe.
On the other hand, Sommer’s theory is supported by Meier,
Merx, Bickell, Delitasch, and Miiller. The case against it
is thus stated by Kuenen (Z’m/ettung, vol. iii, p. 52) whom
Schlég] simply copies and condenses :

‘That the verse is the unit seems to be prescribed by
the nature of the case; the single stichos is mz; it waits,
so to speak, for its complement, which is contained in the
verse-lines that follow; only when the thesis has answered
to the arsis does the voice of the speaker or singer arrive
at a rest-point, from which it may take up the song anew.
All this is overlooked and left out of consideration by
Sommer.’

But perhaps not; for it may be fairly replied that while
the stichos cannot form a logical basis, it. may and does
form a metrical basis. Just decause it expects its complement,
the stichos is to be multiplied, and as the poet’s thought
is often not fully expressed in the single verse, the multi-
plication goes on until the point of rest is reached at the
close of the strophe. In our own language—in any modern
language—no one would think of taking a distich or a
quatrain as a mefrical unit, alleging that a single stichos
gives an incomplete thought. I hold, then, that Sommer has
made an important contribution to the theory of the strophe.

Ernst Meier takes this subject up, and contributes to its
development, on pp. 30-49 of his Form der hebrdzschen
Poeste. We mingles with it a ridiculous theory about the
derivation of the psalm-titles, which deserves no more notice
than Hengstenberg’s notion that strophes are built on the
sacred numbers, and which has made this book of Meier’s
a target for later writers, to an extent that has drawn off
attention from the real merits of his system, which in fact
may be regarded as the germ of Miiller’s. According to
138 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Meier, the shortest strophes occupy four of his brief lines
(which Schlégl calls commas), and the longest only twelve.
Examples of the former are the two prayers in Num. 10. 35 f,
uttered whenever the ark led forth the camp of Israel, and
whenever it came to the halting-place.

, \
Quma, Jahve, tutu
, \
veyafuzu ojebeka vutuvuty
/ \
veyanusu mesaneka vutuuvuty
/ A
mippaneka ! tute
4, \
Schuba, Jahve, tutu
4 AN
ribabot tut
yN
alfe wheal
fk
Jisraél ! ahagct

An example in twelve-line strophes is Job 3, of which I give
the first strophe.
saa mtn tox mde5ny an adie oy tan’ 3
yon bey Sypo mds nwa bse qwn om sinn on 4
| wUyu mY
smna voy
| -uUuVUUR | uU-u-
smyabyy wn indax s
Meier reckons in all seven kinds of strophes, those namely
with 4, 5,6, 8,9, 10,and 12 lines. His division and scansion
of Psalm 114, in eight-line strophes, I gave in chapter iii.
Careful attention is solicited to the general remarks which
here follow (pp. 40-2).
‘Finally, it is still to be noticed as characteristic of the
Muller and the Strophe 139

Hebrew strophe-structure, that a song only seldom consists
of but a single strophe ;—as in short speeches, in folk-songs,
and in manifest fragments. ... The governing law in all
larger complete songs requires rather that two strophes
always come nearer together, and correspond as theme
and counter-strophe. Thus, what we met before as the
so-called parallelism of members, appears again in fuller
extent and completion in the strophe-structure. Only this law
of part and counterpart is never carried through in absolute
stiffness; it appears in each case definite or indefinite
according to the greater or less power and skill of the poet.

‘To these two mutually corresponding strophes there is
often added a concluston-strophe, embracing a comprehensive
thought to end with. We should have here in general the
logical law of a thought-development, which completes itself
in theme, counter-theme, and end-theme. But in particular,
the basis of this strophe-division lies perhaps in the nature
of the ancient choruses, with which however that logical
thought-development may be regarded in general -as co-
operating. The first semi-chorus sang, let us say, the
fore-strophe, the second, standing opposite, sang the counter-
strophe, which contained moreover a counter-theme, an
antithetic thought, Finally, both united choruses sang the
conclusion-strophe, reminding one of the dances of children
in circles, wherein we may still discern a weak imitation
of those ancient choral processions.’

In the examples which Meier then adduces, the second
Psalm gives a twelve-line fore-strophe and counter-strophe,
twice repeated, but with no conclusion-strophe; Psalm 137
gives all three; each has one twelve-line strophe. The
double Psalm 42-43 is in ten-line strophes, of the three
varieties, each twice repeated. The same is true of the
prayer of Habakkuk, save that these are twelve-line strophes ;
I give the second counter-strophe.
140 Systems of Hebrew Metre
Habakkuk 3. 9 c-11.

2b. neharot tebaqqa
arez: rauka
jachilu harim,
serem majim abar
natan tehom golo
rom jadihu nasa.
schemesch, jareach
amad sebula
leor chizzeka
jehalleku
lenogah beraq
chaniteka.

Ley and Bickell, while treating extensively of the strophe,
add little to the theory of its development. The same is
true of Merx (Commentary on Job, Jena, 1871, pp. lxxxiv ff.),
and Delitzsch (Commentary on the Psalms, Introduction,
chap. vi). The latter has some excellent remarks on the
nature of the strophe, from which I borrow a sentence or
two. ‘Strophes are recurring sections, consisting of a
measured and indeed symmetrical number of lines. At the
same time, the movement of the thought in parallel lines
is not interfered with. The peculiarity of the Hebrew strophe
does not consist in a flow of definite metres combined into
one harmonic whole, but in a relatively complete train of
thought being developed in accordance with the distichic
and tristichic ground-form of the rhythmic period.’

Ley gives five marks for recognizing the strophe (Lez/faden,
p- 17):
- Miller and the Strophe 141

(2) By the sense: since a definite course of thought is
carried out, and completed in a definite number of verses.

(4) By the refrains, which in several psalms enter after
equal sections. (As his list is so much fuller than Késter’s,
I give it entire.) Pss, 39, 42-3, 46, 49, 56, 57, 59, 62, 67,
78, 80, 99, 107, 144.

(c) By the end-word Selah, which in most passages stands
at the conclusion of the strophe; in several psalms, as the
LXX shows us, it stands in the wrong place. (I do not
give these two lists, for we cannot now build on this view
of Selah.)

(d) By the catalexis, which at the end of the first strophe
may always be considered as giving a measure for the whole
poem. The catalexis consists in the shortening of the final
verse by one beat, less often by a verse-section. A similar
end is served by the hypercatalexis, which consists in the
lengthening of the final verse by one beat, less often by a
verse-section ; as e.g. in Pss. 33.5; 34.113; 125. 2, &c.

(e) By the middle verse, and the middle strophe. Through
the insertion of a significant intercalary verse just in the
-middle of the poem, or through an especial indication of
the particular strophe that stands in the middle of the poem,
the strophe-division becomes recognizable, since from this
middle-point as a centre, the division can be carried on
equally both forwards and backwards; as e.g. in Pss. 11, 24,
48, 60, 67, &c.

Before passing to Miiller’s books, it is right to call attention
to an important series of articles by Professor Charles A. Briggs,
of Union Theological Seminary, New York, which were
published in Hebraica (Chicago, 1886-8). They expound
in very readable and consecutive fashion the author's con-
ception of Hebrew poetry, especially in its strophical
relations; beginning with the trimeter, and proceeding
through the tetrameter and pentameter to the hexameter.
142 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Professor Briggs is in closer accord with Professor Ley than
with any other of the Germans, but in some points he
anticipates the work of Professor Miller. With these articles
should be coupled another, which is in entire sympathy with
Professor Briggs’s view-point—that of his fellow Professor,
Francis Brown: ‘The measurements of Hebrew poetry as
an aid to literary analysis’ (/ournal of Biblical Literature,
vol. ix, 1890, pp. 71-106).

Both Briggs and Brown have an advantage over some
other Metriker in a certain native shrewdness and dexterous
tact, which gives them insight into the delicate business of
separating the probable out of the maze of the doubtful.
Some of Professor Briggs’s most satisfactory work is on the
(so-called) pentameters of the Pilgrim Psalms, and on Isa, 47
(Hebraica, vol. iv, pp. 132-9). Professor Brown’s article
makes a good number of important suggestions on the book
of Micah, and on Isa. 1-12. It closes in words which are
prophetic of the trend of criticism in the last dozen years:

‘ All these considerations are new reasons why the literary
activity of the Hebrews in and after the Exile should receive
constant and unwearied study, until the scope of editorial
work is better understood; and, to hint at an immense
subject in a single line, the relation of editors to copyists,
and of literary criticism to textual criticism, is more fully
grasped.’

In 1896, Professor Miiller published at Vienna in two
large volumes, Dre Propheten in ihrer urspriuglichen Form.
Two years later, he sent out a much smaller book which
is perhaps of equal importance to his system, S/rophendau
und’ Responsion, The value of this system can hardly be
exaggerated if we are to adopt the estimate of the author
himself, who gives it to the world with the calm consciousness
(Propheten, i. 252) ‘that the laws therein laid down flow
from the nature of things, and disclose new truths that had
Miller and the Strophe 143

remained concealed through thousands of years.’ This is
as interesting from the standpoint of psychology as of
philology, and the same is true of the personal communi-
cations in the Introduction. It is really impossible to judge
the system fairly without noting these peculiarities; the
author says the same thing in so many words (p, 2): ‘I hold
it to be suitable, and in fact necessary for understanding
the whole investigation, to point out here in brief how I
arrived at the knowledge of this truth.” So we must review
with him the critical day ‘in mid-November of last year,’
when for the first time strophic structure in connexion with
Responsion burst upon his sight; and the ‘sleepless night
in December,’ when it occurred to him that the cuneiform
literature had a like poetical form; and the memorable Ides
of February, when he was explaining to his class the fifty-sixth
Sura of the Koran, and ‘as I came to verses 59-72 (strophic
structure 1+8+4+3+2+1) there fell from my eyes as
it were scales.’

These revelations, so carefully dated like Mohammed’s,
lack after all (in Oriental fashion) the essential temporal
element; from internal evidence the general reader would
fix them in the year of grace 1895-6, but there is invincible
external proof that they occurred in the previous year.

It is hard to be serious, not to say patient, with such
pretensions ; but we must be both, and challenge this system
as well as the others, to show its importance and its fresh-
ness. As to the last matter, Professor Schlégl, in his prize
essay, reminds us that Ewald, Meier, and Delitzsch have
essentially the same strophical theory; and Professor Briggs,
who has borne his part in the storm and stress of modern
metrical controversy, has this to say in his General Intro-
duction, 1899 (p. 399): ‘There is nothing new in his
(Miiller’s) theory but the terminology and some of the
illustrations, I have taught all these to my classes for
144 Systems of Hebrew Metre

years, and references to them will be found in my earlier
writings.’

But if not quite fresh, the system may still be important.
To determine this, we need to know just what ‘Responsion’
signifies. Professor Miiller, however, in his Introduction,
explicitly refuses to tell us, until we shall have gone through
the whole book inductively. He excites our curiosity at the
outset. ‘In Semitic philology, where ‘‘ Responsion,” in con-
nexion with strophic structure, whose crystallization-element
it really forms, must be regarded as the expression of the
spirit of poetry and oratory, it is itself neither recognized nor
named. The phenomenon, so long unrecognized, must first
be found, and for the old-Semitic Thing a foreign name
must be borrowed. In Hebrew, indeed, we are wont to
speak of the parallelismus membrorum in verse, but this
expression, so often used and yet oftener misused, may be
said to designate the germ of Responsion, and yet it does
not enable us to conjecture in the remotest degree the great
and far-reaching law of Responsion, which sways in quite
peculiar fashion the productions of ancient literature.

‘It is not my intention to give prematurely a precise
characterization and definite conception of Responsion.
I am a foe of abstract statements, and accordingly I shall
bring into view and analyse the phenomenon only by means
of examples from the three provinces of literature already
announced. Only then—after it’ (i.e. the phenomenon) ‘ shall
have been observed in manifold ways, illuminated on all
sides, and anprehended in its causes and operations—only
then will the time have arrived to abstract and to deter-
mine the concept of Responsion in its peculiarity and
multiformity.’

It was due to our author to present this extended extract,
for the style cannot be separated from the man. Who,
since Carlyle, has given us anything like it? But even as
Miller and the Strophe 145

Carlyle is forgiven on account of the substance of his
thought, Dr. Miiller must have the benefit of the doubt,
We shall be perverse enough, however, to turn in femi-
nine fashion to the last chapter of his first volume, in
order to ascertain what Responsion is. And truly the
material is so rich that it must be given still in the author’s
own words (pp. 190 ff.): ‘We gain a deep insight into
the creative quality of those men, from whom the divine
word was spoken. We can follow precisely the course of
thought of their oracles, and the inmost emotions of their
hearts which come to expression in their works, and we can
clothe these in determinate forms of poetry and art. Even
the peculiarity of the several prophets and poets, their human
individuality, establishes itself by precise, one might say
algebraic, formulae.

‘We are able now to abstract the nature of Responsion
from these examples, so abundant and various, drawn from
three ancient literatures, and to project an image of this
phenomenon, which—so manifold, multiform, and Proteus-
like—interpenetrates and inhabits the entire prophetic
literature.’

(Skipping the biological illustration of a cell and its organ-
ism, we read next): ‘The germ of this phenomenon is the
parallelismus membrorum, which in Semitic, and quite es-
pecially in Hebrew, forms the living element in sentence
and verse.’ (Here he gives the usual divisions and illustra-
tions, after Lowth, and then proceeds thus): ‘ Now, what the
parallelism of members is in the verse, Responsion is in
the strophe and in the oration. The strophe consists of
a complex of verses, which combine into a larger unity; it
contains a bundle of thoughts that represent one Thought,
as a pencil of rays form together one Light. The neighbour
or counter strophe represents a similar or antithetic Thought,
which like the first is the sum or product of another bundle

COBB L
146 Systems of Hebrew Metre

of thoughts, which also corresponds to the first in some or
all of its elements. The formal expression of these relations
of two or more strophes to each other is Responsion.

‘When Responsion is carried through strictly, each line of
the one strophe corresponds with the answering line of the
second strophe, either word for word or thought for thought,
either in parallel or antithetic structure. By the similarity of
the majority of mutually corresponding lines, the difference
in particular lines becomes so much the more sharply
marked, and operates all the more powerfully and pene-
tratingly.

‘Examples of this strict Responsion are furnished by
Amos 1 and 2, 7 and 8; Jer.1; Ezek. 14. 12-23, 21. 1-12.’

Parturiunt monies! this mystical Responsion turns out to
be just the correspondence of strophes, either general (simple
Responsio) or chain-like, binding one strophe to its prede-
cessor (Concatenatio), or introverted, when the beginning and
the end of a strophe are similar (Zcluszo).

Abundant examples are found in the ‘three literatures’ of
all these forms. But holding to the Hebrew alone, accord-
ing to our programme, we may safely assert that no one has
ever shown, or is ever likely to show, that this Responsion
is a regular feature of Hebrew poetry. The average Hebraist
will always be too stubborn to take a part for the whole. It
requires all Professor Miiller’s ingenuity, with an occasional
alteration of the text, to sustain the examples he has gathered,
and many of these are far from convincing. I should be
tempted to take up and analyse his first specimen of sérict
responsion, Amos 1. 2—2. 5, had not Konig done this already
in his Stdistik, Rhetortk, Poettk (p. 348f.), and shown the
unsatisfactory nature of some of the correspondences, and
the trifling character of others, which constantly suggest the
question cz bono? Still it was not these ‘ strict’ responsions,
Miller and the Strophe 147

but those in Isa, 47 which first attracted the adhesion of
Dr. Paul Ruben to Miiller’s theory, and led him to declare
(in the Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. xi, 1899, p. 431):
‘I wish to impress strongly upon my readers the great
amount of evidence which may be adduced in support of
D. H. Miiller’s theory,’

Let us print the chapter, then, in parallel strophes, as
Ruben presents it, including his few emendations (see next
page), and compare this form of the text with that given by
Miiller (Propheten, vol. ii, pp. 16, 17). Miiller’s text has five
strophes instead of six, and hence cannot be printed so as to
show the responsions by parallel lines. His divisions fall at
the end of wv. 3, 7, 10a, 12, the strophic scheme being 8, 8, 7,
8, 8, while Ruben’s is 7, 7, 6, 6, 5, 5. Either of these groups, as
mere numbers, might be defended on the score of symmetry.
It is clear at the outset that both cannot be right, and that a
subjective element has entered already. But a second glance
shows that Ruben’s strophes are formed by reading for the
sensé, as strophes always should be, while each deviation of
Miiller’s joins things that belong apart and parts things that
belong together. How plain it is, for instance, that ver. 12
begins a new strophe! Let us see how Miiller defends him-
self (Propheten, vol. i, p. 179, which comments on this same
chapter): ‘In regard to the division of the last three strophes
—apart from the ideas in question—I have been led by the
sharply-stamped art-forms. Strophe 3 is indicated as a unity
by a kind of zclusto, formed by the word secure in lines
1 and 7.’

But why is it not as well, on his own principles, to make
it a case of simple responsion between the opening lines of
strophes 3 and 4? and how much better sense would be
made by that division, which is Ruben’s. The more one
studies the grouping adopted by Miiller, the more plainly it
appears that the form stands indeed ‘apart from the ideas’

L 2
Systems of Hebrew Metre

148

er

Nn

LLG CCLCE CLA CULMS | ANAL CN Mg?
WMCILG Ce MUL | UL, aca

Nig UML, Er [equ] | che Maud

THAL CMU CMLL | Nig UE ge Lig

Ack. cx TUCLL | (cle cack

tur cagl | cdxau uclil axe’
ACG Inga | GUNG CRE ag
WUENCLE gL AL, NGL | urd cu NUL
GR NAT NGCCLE | IGN NL ACIG
LINGLE TQTCL | NG. INGO. ML
Wu Med, INU docu | LaWacu grau

 

 

cd dui | Wg NGC NLC

utg auiuh | ra uuNu uLeUL
WAG MEG thy Ald | ATL, CLEUL
du, LUA tauc. dau | tq aul
Co GN Ula. dunt ob | Leu accu
AC. Ag NUd xd cay | CU Cau
Loy Wats Aig AGL | CuIgu cu ct,

 

 

Sr

$1

Il

or

$
+

“Lp HVIVS]

Mu qflcLe UM | NL cYadtl

ch ut ch quik | tral tau acdmituh
Rd SLIGU GUID | NIL G@IELL CELE

GR igh NU CaM | cL gucL

LCL ont cda | ka ALGUO

(UEN figL GUNG | ANE ON ULM"
MUGS AGL Liu | ge LCG CGLL
(ON Migh Lau | ge ULm, MULL

ee ,

MUNK, CEL | NC. INGA. ML
uccuL twdul | ue @iccuL
WUTC CLduL | NLU Nd UNC

 

 

 

GN Mau NCL Ag ctl | ge Chu NULL
MUNGL. fia Nu | cchu aL

GN Mau cua Luca | Mg idl uctLU adh GNk
RGU Mig Mc Uggs CLiguis J anuca cub

Cu GN UGG, aL GL | SCuU cicigctu

At, Lhd (oN, cUAL | Cu cag

ENGEL MLE ATAU Aca | dw Walng

 

 
Miller and the Strophe 149

and has been contrived, in some cases, for the very purpose
of bringing corresponding words or thoughts into equivalent
lines in the strophic scheme. Of course the count comes
out wrong in Ruben’s arrangement, and he is frank enough
to say so (p. 438f.): ‘ A glance at the text as I have printed
it convinces us that there is also verbal corresponsio, but
—exceptionally—the corresponding words do not always
stand in the corresponding lines.’

But this is to fail at the experimentum cructs. What
becomes of Miiller’s favourite argument against the emenda-
tions of Duhm and others, namely, that the author has pro-
tected the text by the art-form? And in this case the lines
would go still more awry if ver. 4, recognized as an interpo-
lation by most commentators, were expunged.

In the next volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review (vol. xii,
Jan., 1900, pp. 377-9), Miiller refers to Ruben’s essay,
from which he admits having received many useful hints,
instancing in particular Isa. 47. ‘As a whole,’ he proceeds,
‘I adhere to my former division of the passage; but on
various minor points I partly accept Dr. Ruben’s sugges-
tions, and partly propose some fresh ones, induced thereto
by Dr. Ruben’s remarks.’

The most important change is a reconstruction of the
stanzas, making five strophes of seven lines each, instead of
8, 8, 7, 8, 8. The reduction from thirty-nine lines to thirty-
five is effected partly by excisions from the text, partly by
lengthening some lines. The first four strophes are now
printed in parallel couplets, so that the responsions are
visible to the eye. To this result everything is sacrificed, for
it is still true that the strophes give infelicitous unions and
separations. Thus Ruben properly begins a strophe with
ver. 10: ‘For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness,’ &c., but
Miiller begins in the middle of this verse with ‘thy wisdom,’
before which he repeats ‘thou hast trusted in,’ thus securing
150 Systems of Hebrew Metre

a new responsion. He closes the strophe with ver. 12,
whereas, as remarked above, the sense requires it to stand
at the head of a new division. It is evident, as before, that
the text is manipulated in the interest of the theory. One is
reminded of Ignatius Donnelly’s great cryptogram, proving
the identity of Bacon and Shakespeare.

The net result is that the author of the ode in Isa. 47 has
expressed his thought in evident groups of verses, which we
may call strophes if we choose; and within these bounds he
has very naturally repeated certain words and ideas, some-
times at equal, sometimes at unequal intervals. The same
thing may be observed in more than ‘three literatures’ ;
Miiller himself extends it to the Greek Testament’, and could
doubtless find striking examples in English or German
poetry. At any rate Bevan makes a good beginning by
the quotation from Heine in his review of Miiller (Cresecal
Review, July, 1896, p. 243). The ponderous attempt to
make a uniform law out of this free movement, a metrical
Procrustes’ bed to which even the text must be stretched or
pruned, is manifestly doomed to failure. In the very article
which Ruben wrote to adduce evidence in support of Miller,
he was careful to say (p. 436): ‘He has overshot his mark by
claiming many more instances for his theory than he should
have done. ... There are at least twenty-three examples,
which will, I am sure, stand the severest critical test.

Not all scholars are so sure of even a score of examples
out of the whole body of Hebrew poetry; and it is to be
remarked that on receipt of Miiller’s second book, Strophen-
bau und Responsion, Ruben wrote: ‘ we are widely at diver-
gence with respect to several important points, notably to the
restoration of the texts.’

1 So too Prof. Friedrich Blass, SK., 1902, pp. 420 ff.; cf. his book,
Brief an die Hebréer, Halle, 1903. Rev. H. J. Cladder has made a
strophical study of Jude, in 77#S¢., 1904, pp. 589 ff.
Muller and the Strophe 151

On the whole it is my conviction that Miiller’s learned
and somewhat rhapsodical books, like those of Saalschiitz,
are out of the true line of development of metrical science.
As to the strophes themselves, my faith is like a certain
clergyman’s faith in one of the points of Calvinism: ‘I
believe in the perseverance of the saints—in theory; and
in practice, I believe in it when I see it!’?

1 Zenner’s Chorgesdnge has excited some interest in England and
America. As he follows Miiller in principle, the same general reply
is valid against his position. I have already quoted the following from
Bellermann: ‘The Hebrews have strophes of three to eight verses,
which link themselves to one another in-a certain manner by parallel
lines.’ Yet Bellermann would by no means have claimed any uniform
structure of that sort.

It should be borne in mind constantly that our arbiter is the ear, not
the eye. To print parallel columns of cold type, with certain cor-
respondences across the columns, is an easy thing; to believe that the
poet expected all these to be marked by his hearers, is a difficult thing.

For details, I need only refer to the searching analysis of Zenner’s
book in Kénig’s Stzlistik, pp. 351-5.

{Since the above was written, a Commentary on Isaiah by P. Albert
Condamin, S. J., has appeared (Paris, 1905), in which the system of
Zenner is followed throughout. ]
CHAPTER VII

GRIMME AND THE MORAE

In 1897 the theological faculty of the University of Vienna
offered a prize for the best essay on the metres, rhythms, and
strophes of the Old Testament. Among the fruits of this
contest were the two treatises of Johann Déller and Nivardus
Schlégl, to which I have referred so often. Déller came out
with a universal denial of the presence of metre ; Schlégl (who
received the prize) after criticizing very fully and carefully all
previous writers on the subject, summed up as follows :—

‘We hold the true metrical system to be that which
observes the so-called parallelism of members, and leaves
the Massoretic text entire, as far as possible, and finally
comprehends in itself all the merits in which one or another
of the systems examined above excels the rest. And such
we deem to be the system of Professor Hubert Grimme,’—
which he then proceeds to expound.

And yet Grimme seems to be almost unknown in England
and America, although he has been publishing on this subject
for a decade. In the Lxcyclopaedia Biblica he is barely
mentioned (‘Poetical Literature,’ bracketed additions to
Duhm’s article). Budde, in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible,
tells us a little more, and makes known his hostility to
the system, but only in a summary fashion. Briggs,
in the section of his General Introduction which discusses
‘The Measurements of Hebrew Poetry,’ has much to say
of Bickell and Ley, but nothing of Grimme. I must frankly
confess that when I wrote my article entitled ‘Primary
Grimme and the Morae 153

Hebrew Rhythm’ (Journal of Biblical Literature, 1901,
part ii), in which I professed (p. 173) to have made myself
acquainted with the leading modern authorities on the subject
of Hebrew metre, I had never studied the works of Grimme.
Dr. James Kennedy, of Edinburgh, published in 1903 a book
of prodigious learning on the note-line Paseq—in apparent
ignorance of the fact that Grimme’s Psalmenprobleme (1902)
has a monograph on the same subject which comes to some-
what similar conclusions.

If there is an adequate review of Grimme’s works in any
English or American periodical—aside from Professor Toy’s
page anda third in the American Journal of Semitic Languages,
Oct., 1902—it has escaped my notice. There is good reason,
then, for setting down here the titles of Grimme’s various
publications which bear on the subject before us, so far as
they have come to my knowledge.

Booxs.—Der Strophenbau in den Gedichten Ephraems des
Syrers, 1893; Grundsziige der hebratschen Akzent- und Vocal-
lehre, 1896; Psalmenprobleme, 1902. The three books were
publishedin Collectanea Friburgensia, The first has an appendix
on the connexion between Syrian and Byzantine hymn-forms;
the second has one on the form of the name ‘ Jahwae.’

Pampuiets.—Durchgereimte Gedichte im Alten Testament
(in Brblische Studien, vi, 1901, pp. 39-56); Adeires et strophes
dans les fragments hébreux du Manuscrit A de ? Eccléstastique,
Igor (63 pp.).

ArticLes in Perriopicats.—‘ Grundziige der syrischen
Betonungs- und Verslehre,’ in Zec/schri/t der d. m. Gesellschaft,
1893, pp.276ff.; ‘ Abriss der biblisch-hebraischen Metrik,’ Zé7d.,
1896, pp. 529 ff., 1897, pp. 683 ff; ‘ Nochmals zur syrischen
Betonungs- und Verslehre,’ /é:d., 1899, pp. 102 ff.; ‘Metrisch-
kritische Emendationen zum Buche Hiob,’ Zheologzsche Quar-
talschrift, 1898, pp. 225 f., 421 ff.; Jbid., 1899, pp. 112 ff.,
154 Systems of Hebrew Metre

259 ff.; ‘Zur Frage nach den Psalmeniiberschriften,’ Zé2d.,
1901, pp. 880 ff.; ‘ Wilhelm Meyer und die syrische Metrik,’
Zeitschrift fiir Assyrtologie, 1902, pp. 273 ff.; ‘Gedanken tiber
hebraische Metrik,’ Vierteljahrsschrift fiir Bibelkunde, 1903,
pp. I-14.

The excellent summaries of Déller (pp. 7o-4) and
Schlégl (pp. 36-8) are now superseded by Grimme’s own
compendium of his system, in Psalmenprobleme, pp. 3-12.
This is followed by examples for practice in determining
the accent, pp. 12-20. The chief part of the book (pp. 20-
131) is on ‘Emendations with special reference to their
metrical form.’ The second part, ‘Psalms with variable
metre,’ covers pp. 132-46; part three, ‘On strophes in the
Psalms” (Zur Psalmenstrophik), pp. 147-65; part four,
‘ Paseq-Legarmah in the Psalms,’ pp. 166-93.

Scholars who would follow Grimme through all the intri-
cacies and profundities of his subjects will be glad to study
the whole list of books, pamphlets, and articles above noted ;
it will probably be sufficient in an elementary treatise to
examine the system as set forth in Psalmenprobleme. I
abridge the rules in most cases.

Hebrew metre, says Grimme, must be confessed to have
a certain individual character; it will not do to force it into
the moulds of old-classical or even of new-German metre.
Greek and Latin rhythms are of great variety, forming verses
partly through mere repetition of the same metrical figure,
partly through mingling forms of various character. German
metre differs from classical, obtaining its peculiar colouring
from the interchange of syllables with more or less stress,
according to the: strongly expiratory accent of the German
tongue, and the quantity of these syllables has only slight
estimation in metre. The New German poetry almost con-
fines itself to the iambus and trochee, with an occasional

/
Grimme and the Morae 155

dactyl or anapaest. Given the opening measure of a verse,
one can generally scan the whole poem; verses with variable
rhythms are a puzzle to the average man.

Hebrew metre differs from both. Its basis is the Hebrew
accent of speech, which is far more expiratory than musical.
Let it suffice to refer to the interchange which usually occurs
between tone-long vowels, short vowels, and sh’va, in conse-
quence of every shifting or diminution of the tone.

We are to distinguish three grades of tone.

1. Main tone.

This is borne by the strongest tone-syllable of every word,
considered apart from its connexion in the sentence ; and, in
the sentence itself, by every prominent word, such as verb-
forms, nouns in the absolute state, adverbs like 78, {2, &c.

2. Secondary tone.

(2) Counter tone to main tone. This is never the first
syllable before the main tone, but often the second, e.g. if it

is long, and no long syllable precedes, as nnd ; or if both
preceding and following syllables are long, as mzppikkudhdo.
In some cases it may fall on the third syllable from the main
tone, as méhammathd, ba‘lohim.

(4) Counter tone to counter tone. This is on the second
or (rarely) on the third syllable before the first counter tone
if it is long, e.g. mimm*tsukdthehém.

(c) Main tone diminished. The strongest tone-syllable of
every noun in the construct state, of the imperative before
a, vocative, of personal pronouns strengthening the finite verb,
of all prepositions and conjunctions, of weak adverbs, espe-
cially negations.

3. Weak tone.

(2) Fully vocal syllables that immediately precede or follow
a main or secondary tone.

(4) Syllables with movable sh’va.
156 Systems of Hebrew Metre

While these grades of tone prefer an upward succession
(commonly in the order—weak tone, secondary tone, main
tone), yet in the connexion of words this may be reversed.
For if in a phrase-group (Sprechtakt) the chief tones of two
words come together, the tone of the first word may retreat
to the previous syllable, or if that has movable sh’va, one step
farther back, the sh’va then becoming quiescent. But this
retraction of the tone (called Nesiga) is only possible with
words whose final syllable is not a closed syllable with a long
vowel ; it is therefore most frequent in the inflection of verbs,
e.g. jism’hu lf. But the quantity of syllables (i.e. the length
of time required to pronounce vowels and consonants) is
more important to correct pronunciation than the grades of
tone; it is measured by morae. (Grimme defines and
characterizes these as Bellermann had done.) Accordingly
we have the following classes:

1. Syllables with four morae = closed syllables with a long
vowel and syllables with a long diphthong.

2. With three morae = closed syllables with a short vowel,
the first part of sharpened syllables, short diphthongal
syllables, open syllables with a long vowel, and either the
first or the second syllable of segholate forms (e.g. the first
syllable of medek, the second of eres).

3. With two morae = open syllables with short vowel,
especially pretonic syllables with gamets and ¢sere ; also the
first or second syllable of segholates, and sh’va immediately
before a main or secondary tone.

4: With one mora = sh’va syllables before a weak tone.

This is certainly an improvement in the way of consistency
over Bellermann’s exposition of the morae. Grimme adds
many details, and resolves a number of apparent exceptions,
but we need not go into those particulars. The main point
is the use that is made of the morae, and this comes out
a, little later,
Grimme and the Morae 157

Usually several words are joined by their sound-relations
into a phrase-group’, which is to be regarded syntactically
as a whole sentence, or at least as a complete section of a
sentence. The succession of sounds in the Hebrew Sprech-
takt corresponds to that of the single word so far that here
also the tone-series ascends, as a rule, and accordingly the
‘last word is most strongly accented, while the others have
a diminished main tone, a secondary tone, or a weak tone.
For instance, a noun in the construct state takes a secondary
tone, as ish “léhim, a subject before a pronominal or nominal
predicate takes a diminished main tone, as /ésmah melek.

Verse is distinguished from prose especially by the
rhythmizing (Rhythmisierung) of its parts. To the word that
falls to the accented part of the measure is given an especial
stress; those which fall to the unaccented part are made
especially light; these tone-contrasts are termed the rése and
the fal/. In Hebrew the rises and falls are united in dipodies
and tripodies. A dipody consists of two rises with one to
three falls between ; there may be also an anacrusis of one
to three falls, and a single fall at the end. The tripody has
three rises, with one to three falls between each pair, and the
same anacrusis and final fall.

The simplest form of dipody is 4 x 4 ’é/ nosé, Ps. 99.8;
the fullest form is x x x 2x x x4 [dhir vadhor *mund-
théka, Ps. 119. 90. The simplest form of tripody sounds
thus 4x 4x + 16h Jahvé lakkol, Ps. 145. 9; the fullest
is xxxtxxxtxxxLx vo 'ebhish v'eshta ‘shd B’mits-
vothéka, Ps. 119. 46, 47.

At the close of the dipody or tripody comes the slight
pause of the cesura, which on the one hand prevents an
accumulation of falls that would be rhythmically inadmissible,

1 Literally, speech-measure (Sprechtakt). I cannot find a good
English word for this compound, so I shall use the German word
hereafter.
158 Systems of Hebrew Metre

and on the other hand permits two rises to come together,
since the cesura separates them sufficiently.

Pausal tones express the independence of the dipody or
tripody, brought most readily to the ear by this halt at the
close of a verse. In 4-toned verse, arising from the union
of two dipodies, and in g-toned verse, which-is either a
tripody plus a dipody or vice versa, the first pause is briefer
than the second; but it is proved that the former was not
unmarked by the numerous cases of pausal vocalization in
the midst of the verse.

The organization of strong, medium, and weak-toned
syllables into groups by rises and falls does not take place
arbitrarily. There must have been a limit within the tone-
group (i.e. the rise with its preceding and following falls up
to the next rise) below which the number of morae could
not fall, and this would naturally be connected with the
strong tone.

Now remembering that the strongest tone-syllable of a
Sprechtakt is always a rise, and that a weak-toned syllable
is never a rise, we have only to determine (1) when the less
strong main-toned syllables, and (2) when the secondary tone-
syllables are to be reckoned rises,

(1) This case occurs :

(2) When the main-toned syllable, coming at the beginning
of a dipody or tripody counts with the following less-toned
syllables up to the next rise at least seven morae.

(4) When less-toned syllables both precede and follow, and
the sum of these, with the main-toned syllable, makes at least
eight morae.

(2) This case occurs :

(a) When, under the same conditions as in (1) (a), the
count is at least eight morae.

(4) When, under the conditions of (1) (4), the count is at
least nine morae.
Grimme and the Morae 159

These are the main rules ; there are unimportant exceptions.

As a counterpart to the throwing back of the tone by
Nesiga, protraction of the tone (Zerdehnung) may occur, as
follows: Within a dipody or tripody a main-toned closed
syllable with a long vowel (or a long diphthongal syllable)
preceding a tone-syllable is decomposed into a main-toned
open syllable plus a sh’va-toned syllable (3+ 2 morae), for
example: Ps. 25. 6b, non x pbwyo '3—A2 me ‘old — m° hémmd.

On the basis of dipody and tripody Hebrew poetry has
formed three verse measures :

(1) The trimeter (Drecheder, literally, three-riser), i.e. the
tripody used as a full verse measure ; (2) the tetrameter, i.e.
the dipody taken twice; (3) the pentameter, i. e. the union of
tripody and dipody, less often of dipody and tripody.

The trimeter is the favourite metre of the choir-lyric, but
also of every quiet lyric representation, whereby, through the
parallelism of members, the poet likes to give in the second
verse an echo of the contents of the first verse. The frequent
employment of the trimeter characterizes especially the later
periods of the literature.

(2) The tetrameter is occasionally shorn of its fourth beat,
which is transferred to the breathing-pause. In that case
there is only a slight cesura after the second beat. The
tetrameter is the metre especially belonging to the powerful
individual lyric of earlier times; in the prophetic dialect it
seems to have been unusual before the appearance of the
writing prophets. The parallelism of members never became
quite at home in this measure.

(3) The pentameter’s earliest appearance was in connexion
with the priestly Urim oracles, and the inspired dicta of the
primitive prophets ; later it is used in every kind of individual
emotional poetry, especially in the elegy, kind. As the
longest verse, it had least need of the parallelism of members
to complete its thought.
160 Systems of Hebrew Metre

On the syntactical side, every Hebrew verse contains a full
sentence, or at least a Sprechtakt.

Seldom do we meet with a solitary stichos; commonly
they go in pairs, sometimes in triplets. Hebrew metre never
tolerates a mingling of verses of different length within the
compass of a whole poem; wherever such cases occur in our
present text they are due to corruption or to inorganic
amalgamation of heterogeneous pieces.

Grimme gives many examples for finding the rises in the
various metres. The first is the trimeter, Ps. 2. 10a:

brown ntsbo ny
The first tone-group must extend from the beginning up to
(but not including) the second main tone; hence it is
22 MAY. Jar; AV=Z; MN=3; D=1; D=a2. As the
group begins with an anacrusis it must contain at least
eight morae, or it has no rise. There are actually ten, as
above; so the syllable 17 counts as a rise. The second
group, being built in the same way, overlaps the first : pnd
wn, ten morae, making D'2 a rise. The last group, 9°37,
needs no count of morae, for bv is the strongest main tone
in the whole Sprechtakt. So the verse is accented thus:

ysem odo ny

xx) x2) xx]
A different case occurs in Ps, 18. 25 b:

ry2y mab sy as
Here 3 counts one mora, and 72 four morae, making five,
which being less than seven, leads us to the next main tone ;
we accent the group:

rey 355 oy nap

xxxt[|[xtx|x+
Similarly in the tetrameter, Ps. 1. 3a:

pp ‘bp by Sine pys mm
Grimme and the Morae 161

the morae in '5p-by amount to only eight, but since the
first syllable of 135m has a secondary tone, and follows a
less-toned syllable, nine morae are needed for a rise; we
must pass on then to 0 and accent thus:
pd barby Sony
A good example of a pentameter is Ps. 19. 13:

po mand pao mew
The final letter of the first word is protracted (main tone
before main tone), so an extra fall is appended, d¢2 ‘mz’; this
has seven morae, and just escapes being a rise; the tone-
group therefore is extended to include mz ya, and has in all
fourteen morae. The full scansion is:

3p) myinow ps) maw

xxt[xxxti]txx+|[ «4x

i.e. a dipody plus a tripody.

It is comparatively an easy thing for any system to pick
out illustrative verses here and there; let us see how Grimme
deals with an entire poem. I select the short Psalm 130, as
given in ‘Abriss der bib. heb. Metrik’ (Zectschrift der d. m.
Gesellschaft, 1896, p. 568 f.):

y iA , 4 zt
5 pda nin | passp opoynd
f Zz , , / 7 , 5
245 san did | mawp pane naan | dips nyow 2
5 s7dy vo | Soe spe mhy ox 3
J, y , S 4
5 sxhn yy | ArPdDA yoy > 4
J , / y 2
5 1127 Wer MMP | Mi NP
2 / P , ,
5 spa DMnwn | mim? war nem 6
B+5 I] my Sy Sees SA | pdb o‘tnw>
rove vy acim | sorin may ny »5
, / / / /
3 syminy bSp | SXtwy ns TY NIT g

COBB M
162 Systems of Hebrew Metre

The first thing observable is that ver. 2 is irregular, being
in 2+5 metre, but when Grimme wrote the ‘ Abriss’ he had
not yet formulated the rule that in the same poem no change
of rhythm can be tolerated. The variation here is but slight
compared with those which he posits on almost every page
of his examples in the ‘ Abriss.’ Thus, the seven verses of
Psalm 11 have respectively the following lines: 5+3,5+65;
5, 3+3+5,3+58,3+5,2+8- Yet this is reckoned among
the Finfheber, and in Psalmenprobleme it is reduced to
absolute uniformity.

But the next thing observable is that the variations in
Psalm 130 would be numerous if the text had not already
been treated by metrical emendation.

Ver. 1 is made a pentameter! by withdrawing ‘298 from
ver. 2, which is excused by the combination ‘378 7 in ver. 3.
But this last gives a pentameter with the singular division
4+1, as Grimme confesses. In wv. 5 and 6 soph pasuk is
thrown aside, and by a few rearrangements, as Mn’ for ‘258,
five pentameters are gained for vv. 5 to 7. Now let us turn
to Psalmenprobleme, p. 114 f. At the end of ver. 1 ‘778 7
is dropped as an insertion, soph pasuk is overridden, and the
verse is carried on through ‘Spa. If one asks why, no
answer is given save that the metre demands it. If one asks
whence came the rule that there must be no blending of
metres in the same poem, there seems to be no answer
whatever outside the subjectivity of the system. The diffi-
culties of vv. 6 ff. are surmounted by other means than those
employed in the ‘Abriss.’ w53 is dropped as a repetition
from ver. 5, and whereas in the ‘Abriss’ ‘33% was changed to
nim for the declared purpose of getting rid of the extra fall,
it is restored here because the fall is needed. Everything

1 Or rather, a 5-toned line. Prof. Toy suggests the terms guzxary,
binary, &c. The simplest notation would be to speak of a verse in 5°, in
a*, &c. Cf. Sievers’s ‘ Fiinfer,’ ‘ Zweier,’ &c,
Grimme and the Morae 163

after the first spad is thrown out as an addition of the
redactor, who changed this purely individual psalm to an
‘Israel’ psalm. The reader may be curious to know how
the six irregular feet out of the total fourteen which were
just noted in Psalm 11 are brought up to concert pitch.
The process is as follows: In ver. 1, ‘ flee as a bird to your
mountain’ is pronounced an insertion; strike this out, and
a pure pentameter is left. Ver. 2,‘ The Massoretic verse
division seems untenable, since it creates two unequal verses
of seven and four rises.’ But here again the question is
begged ; the very thing to be proved before the present jury
is the law of inviolable equality. ‘I put the diaeresis before
oxyn, so that wp refers to the bow, as in Ps. 7. 13.
This reason is assigned also in the ‘Abriss,’ but is there
preceded by a weightier one: ‘because in the first place
the metre demands it’—wezl zundchst das Metrum hierzu
ewingt,

“In ver. 3 (read 4) is one Mn too much.’ Too much for
what? evidently for the metre, and specially for this new
interpretation that makes the metre rigid ; for in the ‘ Abriss’
Grimme defends this very min against Kautzsch. But by
giving it up he now transforms 3+3+5 into 5+5. ‘In
ver. § the first three words now excite in me suspicions of
their genuineness.’ They were all right in the ‘ Abriss,’ where
the metre of the verse was 3+5; they are all right as to
sense, marking as they do the familiar contrast between J"¥
and yw; but they must be sacrificed to the pentameter.
Grimme has overlooked after all the 3 + 5 measure of ver. 7,
but it would be easy for him to reject the first clause. How-
ever, the verse is more naturally read as 4 + 3.

The body of Psalmenprobleme, pp. 20-131, ‘Emendations.
with special regard to metrical form,’ is full of suggestions
like these, many of them valuable on other grounds, but
all assuming that the metrical theory can be used as a critical.

M 2
164 Systems of Hebrew Metre

help, whereas the shoe is on the other foot; for the emenda-
tions, so far as they commend themselves, do no doubt give
plausibility to Grimme’s view; but whether this qualifying
clause covers fifty per cent. of the whole, or more, or less,
is a matter to be referred to the consensus of scholars; and
the decision of it, if ever to be reached, is a long way in
the future. With a mens conscta recti, Grimme makes the
appeal to such a tribunal at the opening of his articles on
Job in the Theologische Quartalschrift (1898, p. 300) : ‘ There
lie before us just now, from the pen of each of the modern
Metriker, comprehensive works upon the book of Job; by
J. Ley, the study of “ The metrical condition of the book
of Job” (Studien und Krittken, 1895, pp. 635-92); by
G. Bickell, “ Critical treatment of the Job dialogue” (Weener
Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenl., 1892); finally, by
P. Vetter, the accurate metric-analytic investigation, ‘‘ The
metre of the book of Job” (Bzdl. Stud., vol. ii, part 4, 1897).
And now, whoever sees in the subject of Hebrew metre
more than an idle pastime, and desires to make a standing-
place for himself in it, will do well to put the above-named
writings in constant comparison with this essay of mine,
and to ask himself in which of them is found the least degree
of violent interference with the text, the largest measure of
consistency, and the richest dividend for exegetical science.’
These are brave words, and it is possible that the issue
will justify the implied claim; but meanwhile it is to be
noticed that the opposite page, treating of the brief section,
Job 3.17—4.18, has the following remark with respect to more
than a dozen different passages : ‘the verse is too long ; strike
out’ this or that; also that the pages which follow contain
hundreds of similar suggestions, and scores of the contrasted
‘too short; insert’ this or that. It is to be hoped that
the dividend will prove as rich as it is abundant; but the
riches will not accrue from putting the metrical system at
Grimme and the Morae 165

interest, until this particular theory becomes current coin
among metrical scholars. Now since it is almost a truism
among the modern Metriker that Job is written in hexa-
meters throughout, and since Grimme recognizes nothing
but trimeters, tetrameters, and pentameters, it is easy to
see, on the one hand, why so many feet are ‘too long,’
and on the other hand, why it will be so difficult for the
dividend to accrue.

Many of the emendations in Psalmenprobleme are intro-
duced by the exclamation ‘Paseq!’ In the last division
of this book, Grimme defends with much ability the thesis
that Paseq indicates a corruption in the text; accordingly he
feels warranted in emending any passage so marked’.

Dr. Kennedy, whose book I noticed above, gives a much
fuller induction of the material, from which he draws the
inferences that Paseq frequently marks the position of textual
difficulties, but that inexplicable insertions sometimes appear,
and that there is a want of uniformity in the use of the line.
Sometimes it is strikingly absent when it might have been
expected. Different manuscripts and printed editions vary,
parallel passages vary, and even the mood of the scribe also
varied. The data give a mixed result, not a simple one;
and consequently Paseq cannot be regarded as always
marking a corrupt text.

Before leaving Grimme’s system, let us observe its appli-
cation to some passages from the psalms of the three middle
books which we examined in chapter i. In many respects
it shows a clear gain over that rough and ready method.
It is a coincidence, which I did not notice when preparing
the chapter, that Grimme also begins his examples in the
‘Abriss’ with Psalm 54; it is all the more striking therefore
that the two scansions agree in almost every measure. The

1 Cf, his article ‘ Pasekstudien,’ Bzbsche Zeitschréft, 1903, pp. 337 f.;
1904, pp. 28 ff.
166 Systems of Hebrew Metre

editorial insertion of mm’ in many unauthorized places is
a matter of common belief among modern critics; by
dropping that word from the last half of ver. 8, Grimme
secures three regular feet:

7 , 7
20 1D ow aN
It is true that when reading for the sense 7” English, we

should say, ‘I'll praise thy name’ 8 mx, rather than ‘Tl
praise name ‘hy’; but the latter is no more awkward in
English than the former is in Hebrew.

We will take up next a psalm which appeared very irregular.
In Psalm 64 we found twenty-two feet, of which three were
five-toned, seven were four-toned, eight were three-toned,
and four were two-toned. Grimme makes it four-toned
throughout. 4b he calls ‘ metrically correct,’ in accordance
with his rule that the last beat of a tetrameter or pentameter
may be absorbed in the pause accent—a most convenient
rule, utilized again at the end of ver. 6. In the earlier part
of that verse comes the warning ‘Paseg!’ and so the tetra-
meter is saved by throwing out as editorial the words yn 735
ympp’. This seems a plausible conjecture. Still better is
ver. 8, emended with the help of the Peshitta, which begins,
“God arouses himself and shoots at them an arrow,’ pointing
to a play upon words in the original, O74 717" 0591, Compare
ver. 5: 3" RY} my,

In view of many such helpful suggestions, it is a pity
that Grimme felt obliged to force through everywhere 4
uniform metre for each poem.

In the matter of strophes, Grimme is more moderate than
some of his fellow workers. In the ‘Abriss’ he was wont to
call each Massoretic verse a strophe. At present, he recog-
nizes the selah and the refrain as the two distinguishing marks
of a strophe; he goes through the Psalter and finds that
about fifty of the one hundred and fifty psalms are strophically
Grimme and the Morae 167

organized in whole or in part. But he is somewhat too free
in his manipulation of selah; now following, now transposing,
and again discarding it. In his Preface a remark is made
on the subject of strophes, which is worth quoting, if only
for its neat witticism :

‘Though often in well-attested strophical pieces, encroach-
ments on the text must be ventured, which run decidedly
counter to Philology as “love for the word,” still there fails
me quite the courage or the indiscretion to pursue strophics at
cost of the text, where the safe and regular track has been lost.’

It is refreshing to pass from the ponderosities of Miiller
to an author who possesses the saving sense of humour.

Moreover, Grimme recognizes the tentative character of
much of his own work. He is often saying, in effect: ‘Not
that I have already attained, but I follow after.’ Thus in
Psalmenprobleme,p.vi: ‘But until our knowledge has embraced
the entire circle of Semitic metrical forms, and connected
them with their centre in primitive Semitic verse, we shall
remain in the epoch of attempts, which are ill calculated
to convince the stubborn sceptic.’ Recognizing Ley as his
master (so he distinctly declared in 1896—‘Abriss, p. 530)
Grimme has yet sought to improve upon him by making
the system of the former ‘more sharply precise and well
grounded. While he professes to have learned almost
nothing from Bickell, the two agree in one of the most
important recent developments of metrical theory—namely,
in insistence not merely upon accent, but upon some definite
limits, outside of which a Sprechtakt cannot be recognized
as such. As between the two, Grimme’s system is prefer-
able; he seems to be pointed in the right direction; but
his system of morae is still too subjective to solve all the
problems which it raises. And besides, while Professor
Toy’s criticism is probably too sweeping, there is some
foundation for it:
168 Systems of Hebrew Metre

‘It is noteworthy that in his (Grimme’s) emendations, he
makes almost no use of his mora-system, which in his
introduction (pp. 920) he illustrates at length’ (Am. Journal
of Semitic Languages, vol. ix, p. 60). Ley, in his latest
article, Svudien und Kritiken, 1903, pp. 184-6, rejects
Grimme’s morae, but counts the /a//s instead.

One cannot take leave of this genial author more fittingly
than in his own recent words (Viereljahrsschrift far Bibel-
kunde, vol. i, p. 14):

“At all events, I am very far from the opinion that at
the point where metrics and text-criticism play into each
other’s hands, a biblical text can arise, which will bear upon
itself the stamp of genuineness. While metrics is well
adapted to put us on the watch for certain blemishes in
the text, especially for the presence of gaps or insertions
within the verses, still it possesses no real power of positive
emendation. Already in our day, however, there has been
put forth in the name of metrics a torrent of emendations,
which are called metrical only by courtesy. So we are
obliged betimes to pour water into the fiery wine of certain
Metriker, and to recommend strongly to students of the new
tendency a cool self-possession as the primary virtue.

‘But even if biblical criticism should have little profit,
or none at all, from Hebrew metrics, still the latter would
be by no means worthless; in any case, it is an important
supplement to Hebrew linguistics, a preliminary condition
for the understanding of general Semitic metrics, a character-
istic discipline for essential Semitic criticism.’
CHAPTER VIII
SIEVERS AND THE ANAPAEST

Dr. Epvarp Sievers, Professor of the German language
and literature in the University of Leipzig, has laid the
English-speaking world, as well as his fellow countrymen,
under lasting obligations by his profound and valuable
researches in various departments of philology. His interest
in Hebrew metrics is very recent, and came about on this
wise. In January, 1898, his friend Frants Buhl, the well-
known editor of Gesenius’s Lexicon, with whom he had
often discussed metrical questions, named over to him a
few Hebrew poems that seemed reasonably regular in their
metrical form, and asked him to investigate them from his
own standpoint. The passages were Deut. 32, Lam. 3, Job 3,
Ezek. 15, and Ezek. 19. Up to that time, Sievers states,
his knowledge of Hebrew poetry had been merely ele-
mentary, and he had shared the conviction which is still
the prevailing one in scholarly circles, and which was
formulated so baldly by Kuenen: metrisch tst die hebrdische
Poeste nicht, Accordingly he was much surprised upon
reading through the first passage, Deut. 32, to find it clearly
and almost completely metrical, falling readily into the
forms of anapaestic verse.

It may be remarked parenthetically, that Professor Sievers
was exceedingly fortunate in this first acquaintance, and that
Professor Buhl showed the wisdom of the serpent in offering
a passage which has been recognized for centuries as one
of the most regular poems in its structure; had he asked
170 Systems of Hebrew Metre

his friend to open the book of Psalms at random, the
chances are that the scepticism of the latter would have
been deepened. But in that case, the world might have
lost one of the ablest contributions to our subject which
has ever been written.

Professor Sievers went on through his list of passages
with increasing wonder and delight. More material was
then suggested to him; for the most part of the same
typically regular class; though he soon began to discover
and classify irregularities and exceptions. As early, how-
ever, as February 5, 1898, he was able to present the first-
fruits of his new studies before the philological-historical
section of the Academy of Science, in a paper ‘On the
rhythmic foundations of Hebrew verse-structure.’ Thereafter,
in the intervals of pressing duties, the subject was eagerly
pursued; by the spring of the following year, the first draft
had grown to a great treatise, which, as finally printed in
1901, fills 600 pages of imperial octavo. The extent of the
undertaking, the fame of the author, and the novelty—but
for his evident modesty, one would say the mere audacity—
of this sudden transition from the Aryan to the Semitic field,
caused the achievement to be noised abroad, even in England
and America, as a piece of news, though it was coupled with
very little information as to the contents of the book. The
name of Sievers became familiar in biblical as well as philo-
logical circles, but to the most of the former class it was
merely a name. Up to the present time, Professor Sievers
has issued only this one book on Hebrew metre; if any critic
were disposed to make a disparaging contrast between this
and the numerous productions of other Metriker, our author
might well reply, uum sed leonem. The title reads thus:
Studien zur hebritschen Metrik, Exster Theil: Untersuch-
ungen. Zweiter Theil: Textproben. Leipzig, rgor.

The second part of the book, which comprises a third
Szevers and the Anapaest 171

of the whole, gives on each left-hand page the unpointed
Hebrew text of the various passages, and on the opposite
page a transliteration and metrical arrangement with ex-
planatory footnotes. The passages number ninety-three ;
there are ten from the Pentateuch, six from the historical
books, thirty-four from the Prophets, twenty from the Psalms,
four from the Proverbs, five from Job, four from Lamenta-
tions, two from Ecclesiastes, and eight from the Song of
Songs (the entire book). The Psalms examined are, 1-15,
18, 25, 37,111,112. Outside the first book of Psalms, thus,
only the alphabetical 111 and 112 come up for consideration.
This second, or practical, part of the volume is based upon
the preceding ‘investigations.’ The contents of Part I are
as follows. After the introductory division, and a second,
which explains in detail the method of transcription adopted,
we have, in order:

‘Preliminary discussions on universal rhythm,’ pp. 25-72 ;
‘Problems of Hebrew Metre in general, and previous attempts
to solve them,’ pp. 73-88; ‘Foundations of Hebrew Metre,’
pp. 89-400. Under this last—chap. i, ‘Form and relation
of the sources,’ pp. 89-98; chap. ii, ‘Lines and periods,’
pp. 98-115; chap. iii, ‘The use of different periods in
Hebrew,’ pp. 115-28; chap. iv, ‘Smooth metres and mixed
metres,’ pp. 129-34; chap. v, ‘Periods and strophes,’
pp. 134-41; chap. vi, ‘The rhythm of Hebrew verses,’
pp. 142-76; chap. vii, ‘Verse-ictus and speech-accent,’
pp. 176-288; chap. viii, ‘Verse-structure and speech-form,’
pp. 288-358; chap. ix, ‘Metre and text-criticism,’ pp. 359-
413; chap. x, ‘Results and outlook,’ pp. 372-400.

The weightiest part of the book, in my judgement, is found
in Division III; ‘Preliminary discussions.on universal rhythm,’
where the author’s foot is on his native heath. He grapples,
at the outset, with the supposed difference between metre
and rhythm, which he denies; rhythm has been assumed
172 Systems of Hebrew Metre

to relate to accent, and metre to quantity in the classical
sense; but this distinction will not hold to-day. Poetry as
well as music requires for its full expression an external
representation, a movement in time. So far as this is regular
and articulated, we call it rhythm. The substratum of the
movement—what Aristoxenus calls the rhythmizomenon—
consists of the sounds of speech, succeeding each other at
intervals in a given time, part of ‘which may be filled by
silence instead of sound. These portions of sound (phases)
and of silence (pauses) together make a rhythmical or metrical
series. A single phase in music is a sound; in poetry a
syllable.

When the different phases and pauses are combined by
groups into separate unities, rhythm arises. The simplest
rhythmic groups are feef in verse, measures in music. Above
the feet are rhythmic groups of a higher order, namely,
(in ascending series) sections, lines, periods (stanzas), strophes.
Not all are present in every metrical form; and stanzas are
infrequent.

Each foot divides into two ideal parts, the rise and the
fall, thesis and arsis, (Sievers here charges the common
nomenclature with error. He makes thesis the rise and arsis
the fall.)

The two most important factors of rhythm are the division
of time and the gradation of stress. As to the former, music
is more strict than poetry; it gives the so-called rational,
poetry the irrational, rhythm. In music the natural time-
values are brought under the yoke of rhythmic time-values ;
all tones are in the exact relations of 1, 2, 4, &c., with
no fractions; but every good ear can verify the statement
that the natural time-values in language are longer or
shorter according to circumstances; and yet we are con-
stantly confusing the two provinces, and repeating such
statements as that a long syllable has twice the time of a
Sievers and the Anapaest 173

short syllable. It is impossible to represent accurately, by
means of musical notation, the time-relations of the syllables
in a modern spoken sentence.

A verse of poetry has but one principal kind of division,
that into feet; and while the feet are theoretically of equal
duration, this is true in practice only of some of the more
elevated emotional compositions, where one can beat time
from foot to foot; when ordinary recital follows closely the
shades of the sense, the duration of the feet varies; some
are protracted, others shortened.

Despite all this, our modern poetry is often described as
measured by ‘iambi,’ ‘ trochees,’ &c., but herein is a manifest
persistence of the age-long confusion about the nature of
metre. All such terms have their origin in muszcal rhythmics.
A trochee was originally a ‘falling’ measure (i.e. moving
from long to short) in 2 time, an iambus a ‘rising’
measure of the same form, a dactyl was a falling 4, an
anapaest a rising 4. But these measures at the same time
had definite relations to the forms of the language that was
to be rhythmized. By the side of the musical trochee, for
instance, there stood a two-syllable falling foot as language-
substratum ; for each word-syllable there was a definite and
uniform quantity. But when strict musical rhythm is given
up in vocal delivery the time-beat vanishes, and only the
language-feet remain. Quantity has yielded to accent,
trochee and spondee are alike x x, dactyl x x x, anapaest
x x x, &c. For these external schemes the old time-beat
names are then senselessly dragged in, and definitions, too,
which only fit the measure of rational rhythm, by no means
the irrational feet of spoken verse. The number of syllables
in the foot now plays the réle of constitutive factor. The
ancients designated the foot as consisting of a certain number
of morae, the mora being the xpévos mpéros, not an absolute
time-value like 2 of a minute, but a certain fraction of the
174 Systems of Hebrew Metre

time assumed for the whole foot, as in 4 time 4 of the
measure, &c. We, on the other hand, designate the foot.
as a compound of two, three, or four syllables.

It scarcely needs to be added that between genuine song
(rational rhythm) and verse recitation (irrational rhythm)
there are intermediate gradations and transitional forms, as
musical recitative, intonation, and cantillation.

As in music there are different forms of coupling the
measures (compare € and 3 time), so in poetry we have
feet united in a monopodic or a dipodic way. The differ-
ence between these is manifested in three directions; tone-
strength, tone-height, and tempo.

1. In a simply monopodic line there are but two grades
of tone-strength, the rise and the fall, in constant alternation
from heavy to light, as

will sich | Hektor | ewig | von mir | wenden.
On the other hand, the dipody has at least three contrasted
grades of tone-strength ; that of the stronger (predominant)
rise, that of the weaker (subordinate) rise, and that of the

two falls, which may also besides be of different grades with
respect to each other, thus:
, CON , a8
Als ich | noch ein | Knabe : war (pause) ||
, \ /
sperrte | man mich | ein (pause) ||

In the dipody, as a rule, the dynamic intervals are greater
than in the monopody; the former also gives the verse a
livelier movement.

2. As to tone-height, we are to notice especially the mutual
relation of the rises. In the monopody this relation is free,
the syllables may be uttered on the same level of pitch, or
they may vary in this respect without any definite order of
succession. But in the dipody one rise is always higher than
the next; if the first rise is low the next in the same dipody
Sievers and the Anapaest 175

is high, and vice versa. If we use the symbol - for a high
tone and . for a low tone, our last example will read thus:
Ads ich ; no.ch ein | Kna‘be : war (p) |
spe'rite i ma.n mich | ein (p) ll
3. Concerning tempo, it is to be noted that in the normal
rate of utterance the total duration of a foot is appreciably
less than the product of the number of syllables by the time
of the single syllable ; thus a six-syllable foot takes less than
sixfold the time of its average syllable pronounced alone.
This can be proved by the metronome. Now the same
relation holds between monopody and dipody; the latter is
spoken faster than the former. A distich like
Phylax, der so manche Nacht
Haus und Hof getreu bewacht,

can be prolonged almost ad /zbztum without losing its effect,
but if one tries the same thing with
/ \ , \
Als ich noch ein Knabe war
7 \ 7
sperrte man mich ein
it breaks up into prose.

Like the rise in a single foot, the stronger tone in a dipody
may take either the first or the second place; there may be
falling dipodies ’‘ or rising ‘’.. The former is seen in the
last example, the latter in

‘ , ee ,
Sie war so fromm, | sie war so gut. ||
The two may be blended in the same verse (broken rhythm), as

\ , 7,3,
Ein frommer Knecht | war Fridolin.

What is commonly called a verse may correspond rhythmi-
cally to a line or a period; there are verses of 2, 3, 4, 5, and
6 feet (or beats, if one counts by beats). But the 5-foot line
may be regarded as a period of 3 +2 lines, and the 6-foot
176 Systems of Hebrew Metre

line as a period of 3+3 lines. All longer verses are periods,
not single lines.

At the end of each line stands a cesura; often also a
similar section is made within the line by a mid-cesura.
In that case the 6-toned line becomes 2 + 4, less often 4+ 2,
or even 2+2+2.

Lines do not occur singly, but in groups; hence each line
has to be regarded as the component part of a period, and
often of a higher group. The line as an element in the
period is called a member. The real rhythmical time-value
of a line is not always to be found by simply adding its
vocal elements; the pauses must also be reckoned, for
example in

sperrte ! man mich | ein (xf x)

the pause equals one and a half feet. Such a line is called
brachycatalectic.

The original form of the period is two-membered, con-
sisting of fore-sentence and after-sentence. It does not
necessarily extend to a strophe; periods may follow each
other naturally without being articulated symmetrically.

Accent may be either that of the word or the sentence.
In each case we must take account of the gradation both in
stress and in heightening of the tone, distinguishing accord-
ingly the dynamic (or expiratory) and the musical accent.
Every known language mingles these elements, but in different
proportions, so that for instance the Teutonic languages are
characteristically expiratory, the Romance languages musical.

Some forms of poetry are not sensitive to disturbances of
the word-accent in any form, and so they present the pure
type of accentual verse-structure. Such was the ancient
Greek poetry, built upon quantity. Then there are transi-
tional forms, like the Latin, which though quantitative pre-
serves the word-accent in the last half of most hexameter
Stevers and the Anapaest 177

verses. On this account we must not in doubtful cases adopt
the hard-and-fast distinctions ‘accentual’ or ‘ non-accentual.’
Such transitional forms are not strange, for since a verse
comes to the condition of rhythmizomenon by means of a
certain equalizing of the rhythmic scheme and the accentual
scheme, a compromise is as conceivable as a full victory. In
all such cases of compromise we must sift the material
critically and keep within the bounds of those deviations
from natural accentuation that are technically permissible;
we should attempt also to ascertain the causes of the devia-
tion. One of the commonest causes is that certain word-
forms fit badly with their natural accent into the prescribed
metres or metrical positions. For instance, the rising
character of the accentual anapaest in German is disturbed
by the occasional entrance within the verse of forms like
~ + or +x; in such cases the accent is shifted to + ~ or
i+ x, as

\ J , , \ J,
anstimmend gejauchzt in des Sieges Festschritt,

but still the last two stresses are almost equalized, and the
result is what may be called the ‘hovering’ or suspended
tone (schwebende Betonung). No a préorz rules can be given
to cover such cases; experiment must guide us. One can
only say that such an equalizing is easier as the difficulties to
be overcome are less; easier, for example, in a conflict
between main and secondary tones than between main tone
and tonelessness.

The sentence accent also must sometimes be modified by
suspended tone, and by the same means as the word accent.
But apart from these occasional shiftings the natural sentence
accent is as important in accentual poetry as the word accent.
On its varieties of gradation and articulation rests the differ-
ence not only between monopodic and dipodic connexion in
general, but also that of the different sub-classes of these

coBB N
178 Systems of Hebrew Metre

connective forms. The forms themselves are ascertainable
from the sentence accent, when they are not directly handed
down. But two things are to be noted.

(1) It cannot be expected that all passages will be equally
plain as to their connective form. For example, in

Nun verlass’ ich diese Hiitte,
meinen liebsten Aufenthalt,
wandle mit verhiilltem Schritte
durch den éden, finstern Wald—

the first two lines, apart from the others, might be monopody
or dipody, but the last two show that the whole is dipodic.

(2) The same example illustrates an important general
tule, Lines 1 and 2 have each four feet, two of which would
be less prominent than the others if the piece were read as
prose, but in their rhythmic connexion they are elevated to
an equality, it matters not whether by stress or pitch. On
the other hand, the three important words in each of the two
last lines cannot be brought down to the level of the others.
Hence the general rule—prose depressions can be elevated in
verse, but prose elevations cannot be depressed.

We come now to Division 4: ‘Problems of Hebrew Metre
in general, and previous attempts to solve them,’

Every ‘ Metrik,’ including Hebrew, has to contemplate
certain leading questions, such as the mode or modes of
representing the poetry (song, recital, or both), and the
form of the rhythm. How is the rhythmizomenon to be
rhythmized? We cannot take up a poem with the pre-
judgement ‘it must be’ thus or thus; there is but one proper
method, that of cautiously testing everything by audible
recitation. If one can carry naturally through long stretches
of the text a form of direct rhythm which satisfies general
metrical laws, and also the rhythmical feeling of speaker and
hearer, he may believe with some confidence that he has at
Sievers and the Anapaest 179

least made a close approximation to the metre intended by
the author. The less preliminary theory the better outside
these laws of universal rhythm; theories are to be deduced
from groups of facts obtained by constant and intelligent
practice.

The course of Hebrew metrical investigation has been
sadly hampered by confounding two things that belong apart,
rhythmical form and poetical style. The ‘parallelism of
members’ is a case in point; it is a connexion of thought
more than of form; we must lay aside all these matters of
style. With respect to the rhythmical form, the Metriker
fall into several groups.

(a) Quantitative systems. These confound rational and
irrational rhythm, and have been already answered. They
include, too, the ancient systems of morae. Grimme has
revived the term and connected it with his own predomi-
nantly accentual system, but the objection seems fatal that
the addition of the morae from beat to beat gives different
sums, and so breaks the indispensable equality of time-
measure between the feet.

(4) Syllable-counting systems: of these only Bickell’s
deserves mention at the present day. Besides his Syriac
parallels, we might draw others from the Vedas, where we
have something similar to this constant alternation between
trochee and iambus. But the essential difference is that in
the Vedas the number of the syllables in most of the verses
is handed down and incorporated in the text; in the Old
Testament it is only theoretically postulated by Bickell, and
it cannot be applied to the text without countless manipula-
tions and corrections; moreover, the result is an impossible
text which has no right to the name of Hebrew.

(c) The only other group consists of accentual systems,
and these clearly hold the field in principle; only the
method is debatable. To be sure, accent is only one of the

N 2
180 Systems of Hebrew Metre

cardinal principles of verse structure, but it is well to
emphasize it in reaction from the quantitative conceptions
that preceded. Merx started on the true line in’ the
Introduction to his Commentary on Job (1871), but con-
tented himself with a few hints. Ley has worked indepen-
dently of Merx, and has won the lasting merit of creating
for the first time a needful basis for further discussion, on
which basis rest the only tenable positions relating to the
length of the verse, &c. But there is an essential gap in his
system, which Grimme attempts unsuccessfully to fill up with
the morae. By counting only the rises and disregarding the
falls in a verse he leaves himself no control over the verse
as a whole; he simply brings together a conglomerate of
counted syllable-heaps of rhythmically indifferent form and
duration, His verses must be fully rhythmized, and both
constants accounted for before they can become genuine
metrical forms '.

In his fifth and final division, ‘Foundations of Hebrew
Metre,’ Sievers shows in the first place that Hebrew songs
were not like our modern songs, but were song-like recita-
tions in ‘irrational’ rhythm ; that we can therefore examine
all their poetry under the head of spoken rather than of
musical verse.

Under the caption ‘lines and periods’ he declares that
the arguments of Ley and his followers seem to prove con-
clusively that Hebrew metre is only possible under the pre-
supposition that its verses were in essence accentual. Hence
two practical rules:

(1) The position of the rises within the verse is determined
by the position of the natural word accents, apart from some
subordinate rhythmical shiftings of tone.

(2) The number of rises to be assigned to a single verse

1 Of course this criticism is superseded by Ley’s latest article, in
which he came over to the counting of the falls.
Sievers and the Anapaest 181

depends on the natural accent of the sentence and of the
sense.

(Sievers here adds a rule which he is to prove later :)

(3) The most normal form of the verse-foot is the tri-
syllabic x x + or its resolution x x % x; with this, in conse-
quence of a different phasing, may enter ~, or x~, or
x x x-4, with their resolutions.

Now as this is the most characteristic feature of the system
we will turn at once to the evidence, pp. 143 ff.: ‘A glance
at any Hebrew text shows that the overwhelming majority of
all poetic lines begin with one or more untoned syllables
and end with a toned syllable’ The example adduced
(p- 143) is Deut. 32 again, where of course all is plain
sailing. The most frequent feet are found (p. 149) to be
x and x x, with their resolutions x Jo and x x du.
Once more, Deut. 32 furnishes the pattern, and all the per-
mutations of the normal foot are found to tally with its
metres, But (p. 150) since x4 and x x are mingled,
which is primary? ‘One falls into hasty stumbling if he
tries to speak all the verses in the average movement of
two-syllable feet; on the other hand, the verses sound right
and dignified if recited according to the scheme of the three-
syllable foot, like the German anapaest. The trial decides
therefore for x x 4 as the ground form, t.e. for the anapaest-
like character of these verses. The italics are Sievers’s.
(P. 151): ‘On this theory is based the whole further investi-
gation, as well as a good part of the preceding.’

This witness is true. The theory results from a proper
empirical observation, but it ought not to have been made to
cover so much unsurveyed territory. The author goes on
to account for x by the protraction (Ueberdehnung) of a
previous rise and for ~ by resolving it into Uv, and for other
exceptions by the hovering rhythm, and so on through 250
pages, all resting on the assumption that because x x ~ is
182 Systems of Hebrew Metre

a frequent form, all other forms must be somehow derived
from it or connected with it. It is to be remembered that
Sievers repeatedly expresses regret for his limited vocabulary,
and declares that his results are to be taken with that
limitation. Suppose he had begun with Grimme’s simplest
dipody 4 | x 4 El nésé, or with Ewald’s tripody 4 | x 4 | x4
Tobh Jahwé !’kd1; would it not have been possible to for-
mulate rules and exceptions that would have brought all into
harmony with some other fundamental foot? Would it not
be better still to acknowledge frankly that Hebrew metre is
as free as the German to which he constantly compares it,
and that a Hebrew poet was at liberty to employ x + or ~ x
without any previous protraction or other device? As a
matter of common observation, it is true, x x ~< is one of
the feet most often used. But it is simply Bellermann’s x +
with the prefixed sh’va which he discarded.

The reader who has the curiosity and the patience may
choose to go through all this vast accumulation of material,
as I myself did, slowly and thoroughly, in the summer of
1902, and if his experience is like mine, he will be constantly
protesting ov« gor: raira, odk ort. We are under the greatest
obligations to Sievers for rectifying in many particulars the
foundations of Hebrew metrics, for which needed work he
was fully competent; but it was his misfortune to have at
command only the most regular examples of Hebrew poetry
rather than the whole body of it, and to become dominated
by a theory which cannot be applied universally.

One valuable feature of his book must not be forgotten ;
the brief section on periods and strophes, chap. 5, of book v.
D. H. Miiller’s responsion system he rejects decidedly.
Miiller’s strophes, he says, are nothing but prose-texts; even
his lines or verses are not really rhythmical forms, and so we
lose every objective measure for the judgement of his strophes.
‘If Miller has found something here and there which is
Sievers and the Anapaest 183

undoubtedly correct, that has happened, to my thinking, not
on the basis of his system, but despite it.’

In the summary of this chapter, he expresses doubt as to
the validity of strophes that extend beyond two or three
periods. Rather, the whole mass of Hebrew poetry seems
to divide itself into sections or divisions according to the
sense, often bounded by the soph pasuk. Strophes in the
narrower sense are not excluded; only one must proceed
cautiously from case to case, and constitute strophes only
when they spring up as it were of themselves.

As a general rule, Hebrew technic stops with periodic
articulation; groups of these periods may sometimes have
the function of strophes. ‘At all events the great freedom
of the form of Hebrew poetry secures at the same time an
advantage not to be undervalued, that it can follow when
it will all gradations of the thoughts without restraint, and
so can help the thoughts themselves to their most natural
expression. Yet in and with this freedom, Hebrew poetry
is and remains genuine even according to its form, that
is, it is in the widest sense a metrical or verse-measured
poetry.’

This same freedom Sievers vindicates (against Grimme’s
present view) as regards the multiform grouping of the feet
into verses. Would that he had carried the principle a step
further downward !

He is hardly convincing when he attempts to show the
poetical and metrical character of many passages which are
commonly regarded as prose. What kind of poetry results
I can best indicate by an example. A few betterments are
given in the Nachwort.

Jonah i. 3°5>.
wajjittén s‘char4h | wajjéred bah | labo ‘immahém [tarsisa
millifné jahwé] || (6)
184 Systems of Hebrew Metre
wejahwé hetiluriix [-gedola] ’el-hajjam || waihivsd‘ar-gadél

bajjm || 3 (47): 3
wehé’onijja | xikseba lehi8Sabér || 4 (?)
wajj'iret hammallaxim wajjiz‘dqi | ’i8 ’el-’elohau || 5 (?)
wajjatila ’ep-hakkelim [(‘48er ba’6nijja)] ’el-hajj4m | lehagél
me‘gléhem || (5?)

I have yet to learn of a competent authority on Hebrew
metrics who believes in x x 4 as the pattern upon which
Hebrew verses are built. Professors Schlégl, Toy, Grimme,
and Ley are among those who have expressed themselves
distinctly against Sievers in this and in some other particulars.
See especially Schlégl’s thorough and damaging review from
the standpoint of Grimme’s system (Lisferarisches Central-
blatt, 1902, col. 22 ff.). The fact cannot be charged to the
exclusive interest of each one in his own system; for we are
to add one more to the remarkable concessions of Ley in his
latest published article to which I have referred so often. He
takes pains to refute Déller’s charge that every Metriker stands
for himself alone ; he shows that the investigators on different
lines are approaching each other, and he takes occasion to
bestow high praise upon Sievers’s ‘ bahnbrechend’ work,
though condemning the onesidedness of his anapaestic
theory.

Even Schlégl cannot conclude his severe arraignment
without confessing how much he has learned from Sievers,
and commending the Studien to all students of Hebrew
metrics.
CHAPTER IX

RESULTS

Tue distinction between rhythm and metre cannot be
maintained ; it is one of the merits of Sievers to have shown
this clearly. So far as Hebrew poetry has come down to us
by tradition, a portion of it is fully metrical, another portion
is unmetrical, and a third is partially metrical. It may be
possible at some future day, through textual criticism, higher
criticism, and ingenious devices of various sorts, to bring
the bulk of the two last classes under the first class; but
not one of the metrical systems thus far put forth has accom-
plished this result. If it is ever reached, it will only be by
the labour of many workmen for many years; and even then
there will probably remain a large unexplained residuum. .

Still, the systems already devised have been by no means
in vain; when one reviews them sympathetically, aiming to
extract and combine the good in each, it is remarkable to
what a degree the light grows; the theories so often regarded
as isolated or antagonistic are found to be really connected
and to some degree progressive. The progress, to be sure,
is not in a straight line, but rather in an irregular spiral,
which seems to recede only to advance. Fortunately the
spiral may be considered as winding upward around a cone;
the diameter is ever narrowing, and some future climber may
be able to put his hat over the apex—perhaps about the time
some other climber discovers the north pole!

The father of genuine Hebrew metrics is Bellermann
186 Systems of Hebrew Metre

(1813). His predecessors were subjective and fanciful ;
he built soberly on the basis of the Massoretic text, but
was not averse to occasional emendations. He recognized
as the prevailing Hebrew metre the so-called iambus, which
is accentual, not quantitative; he perceived the difference
between Hebrew and classical poetry. He held that sh’va
was to be altogether neglected in rhythm; and so his
iambics would often correspond to what others have called
anapaests.

Saalschiitz (1825) corrected some of Bellermann’s minor
errors, notably in the system of morae and the force of sh’va,
but gave the spiral a twist in the wrong direction by main-
taining that the Hebrew foot is descending rather than
ascending :—

+x or 4x x, not x or xx.

His attempt to prove this was very elaborate and earnest
and was renewed in 1853; but it has utterly failed. His
first book, however, will always be useful for its very full and
thorough refutation of all the writers on Hebrew metre who
preceded Bellermann.

Ewald (1835-9) is the first writer on our topic who
sounds the modern note of development, and relates Hebrew
metrics to all the departments of Oriental learning in which.
he was a past-master. Narrowly regarded, he adds little to
the special investigations of his predecessors; he is more
concerned with the relations of lines than of feet, and in this
department (strophic) he was anticipated by Késter (1831).
But broadly regarded, the Dichter des Alten Bundes is most
stimulating and inspiring; it cannot be neglected by any
faithful student of the literature of Hebrew metre.

Ernst Meier (1853), with his simple folk-lore theory, which
measures all Hebrew poetry as it were with a two-foot rule,
has received far less credit than he merits. His Suabian
holiday-studies took him close to the very roots of all poetry
Results 187

in nature and life. He brought to the investigation of our
subject the simplicity of Bellermann without his stiffness.
There was a genuine advance, not in kind but in degree, in
the contribution he made; the naturalness and animation of
his scansion have never been surpassed. Kuenen hesitates,
it is true, about including Meier among the Metriker at all;
but that is because Kuenen was wedded to the false equation,
metre = quantitative metre.

With Julius Ley (1866-1903) we come to the most im-
portant name in the last fifty years of metrical development.
No one has ever illustrated better than he the motto,
‘Forgetting those things that are behind.’ His first book,
The Metrical Forms of Hebrew Poetry (1866), which centred
about alliteration, was soon left behind and quite forgotten.
His great book, Leading Features of Hebrew Rhythm (1875),
contains many principles and illustrations which are still as
useful as ever, but also these :—(1) Compensation ; (2) sub-
stitution ; (3) the octameter as the fundamental foot ; (4) dis-
regard of the falls ina verse. In 1887 he gave up the first
and second of these; in 1900, the third and fourth, (The
last date refers to the composttion of his Metre of Deutero-
Isaiah, which was published posthumously.) Every one
of these subtractions was an addition; his system as he
finally left it may challenge comparison with all others. It
preserves the merits and avoids the defects of Bellermann
and Meier.

Gustav Bickell (1878-94), ‘to whose work we are far
more indebted than to that of any other for our understand-
ing of Hebrew metrics’ (Duhm, in Lvcyclopaedia Biblica,
article, ‘Poetical Literature’), has produced a theory which
is very attractive by its smoothness and simplicity, and which
he has carried through the whole range of Old Testament
poetry. Reduced to its simplest form, it is this: ‘ Every line
of Hebrew poetry is either iambic or trochaic without varia-
188 Systems of Hebrew Metre

tion ; whether this or that is decided by counting back from
the final stress.’

But though the simplicity of the theory attracts, its vio-
lence to the text and its prosaic results repel; in the course
of a generation the repellent features have so predominated,
that the system, once largely followed, is now almost every-
where discredited. Two of its features, however, represent
permanent gains; the emphasis laid on reckoning with the
falls as well as the rises of a verse, and the accumulation
of plausible emendations of the text; this last offsetting the
‘violence’ just noted.

We come next to Hubert Grimme (1893-1903). I have
passed over D. H. Miiller and his Responsions, which do not
seem to be in the line of ascent of our spiral, irregular though
it be. I omit Budde and Késter for a different reason ; it is
because in this concluding summary I am treating only of
the authors of systems of Hebrew metre, and while the
strophe, the cesura, and the kind-verse are important
branches of the subject, which receive due attention in the
body of the treatise, they do not extend over the whole
ground,

Grimme is certainly one of the most learned, energetic,
and prolific of the Metriker. Building avowedly on Ley’s
basis, he has sent out a transept which does not seem to
stand on so firm a foundation. The system of morae would
authenticate itself if it took in easily and assimilated the
biblical material; but in too many cases the material is
warped to fit the system. One of its happiest results, how-
ever, was to suggest to Ley, as the latter acknowledges, the
counting of the ¢keses instead of the morae, which does not
differ greatly from Sievers’s plan in principle, though yielding
different results. And inasmuch as Grimme makes no claim
to have produced as yet a system that satisfies the require-
ments of the problem—a task, he believes, that requires the
Results 189

co-operation of many labourers ‘in different fields—we may
look upon him as one of the most hopeful investigators in
the whole department of Hebrew metrics.

The latest system is that of Sievers (1901). Its author has
won great success in rhythmical researches outside the
Semitic province. He is the first to take over, in-a
thoroughly workmanlike fashion, the varied problems of our
subject into affiliation with general metrics. He has a clear
eye for what is essential to a proper investigation of these
problems, and he cuts off non-essentials with an unsparing
hand. His own book is acknowledged on all hands to be
a great book, abounding in principles clearly deduced and
examples cleverly applied. But he has not yet attained to
what has been called ‘a self-denying and theory-denying
hypothesis.’

Enamoured of his own creation, he too tampers with the
text, ‘ protracting’ or ‘suspending’ or ‘ diminishing’ until it
sometimes comes out as little recognizable as Bickell’s
Syriac-Hebrew. Sievers is a warm advocate of the ‘free-
dom’ of Hebrew poetry; may he stand fast in that liberty,
and no longer be entangled in the yoke of uniformity. His
system must pass through the fire and lose its wood, hay,
and stubble; the pure gold that remains will be as valuable
as that of any preceding system.

A consummation devoutly to be wished is the union of
scholars like Grimme and Sievers on the platform of Ley’s
system, with his last improvements; the result would be of
immense worth to biblical science. On the one hand, a
profound acquaintance with general philology; on the other
with Semitic philology. The one side would consent to
sacrifice its exclusive anapaests, the other its cherished
morae; but the ‘theses’ would compensate for the latter
loss, and a new ‘ freedom’ for the former.

The suggestion came to me independently; but I find
190 Systems of Hebrew Metre

in Baentsch’s review of Grimme’s Psalmenprobleme (Theo-
logischer Jahresbericht, 1903, vol. ii, p. 173) the following
important sentence: ‘ With Sievers, whose system, as com-
pared with the author’s complicated morae-theory, points
to a greater simplicity, Grimme has not yet come to terms,
unfortunately.’

If some genuinely mediating investigator could bring the
two schools into harmony, he would inherit the blessing
pronounced on the peacemakers,
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HEBREW METRE
FOR THE LAST ONE HUNDRED YEARS

(The list makes no pretension to completeness, especially
as to articles in reviews. The abbreviations will probably be
plain to all who are likely to consult them.)

1811.

1813.

1817.

1822.

1825.

1831.

1832.

DE WETTE, W. M. L. Commentar iiber die Psalmen.
Cf. 4th edition, Heidelberg, 1836.

BELLERMANN, JOHANN JOACHIM. Versuch iiber die
Metrik der Hebraer. Berlin.

GESENIUS, WILHELM. Hebriisches Lesebuch. Vor-
erinnerung zum poetischen Theile. p. 80.

Wo.rFF, ABRAHAM ALEXIS. Der Prophet Habakkuk.
Darmstadt. (Contains ‘Abhandlung iiber hebr.
Metrik.’)

SAALSCHUTZ, JOSEPH LEVIN. Von der Form der hebr.
Poesie, nebst einer Abhandlung iiber die Musik der
Hebraer. Ké6nigsberg.

KGsTER, FRIEDRICH B. Die Strophe, oder der Paral-
lelismus der Verse der hebr. Poesie. In TSK., 1831,
p- 40 ff.

KOSTER, FRIEDRICH B. Das Buch Hiob und der
Prediger Salomos nach ihrer stroph. Anordnung.
Schleswig.

ROSENKRANZ, JOHANN K. F. Handbuch einer allge-
meinen Geschichte der Poesie. 1. Theil (esp. p. 85).
Halle.
192

1833.

1834.

1835.

1837.
1839.

1840.
1841.
1842.

1843.

1845.

1846.

1847.

Systems of Hebrew Metre

DE WETTE, W. L. M. Einleitung in die Biicher des
A.T. 4. Aufl. (esp. p. 170). Berlin.

NIcoLas, M. Forme de la poésie hébraique. Paris.

WocHER, Max. Mittheilungen iiber den Strophenbau
der hebr. Poesie. In TThQ., p. 613 ff.

Ewa.p, HEINRICH. Die Dichter des Alten Bundes.
Géttingen.

GUTTENSTEIN, B. F. Die poetische Litteratur der
alten Israeliten. Mannheim.

HiTz1G, FERDINAND. Historisch-kritisch Com. iiber
die Pss.

Munck, EDovarD. De la poésie hébraique aprés la
Bible. In Le Temps.

KOSTER, FRIEDRICH B. Commentar iiber die Pss.

EWALD, HEINRICH. Die poetischen Biicher des Alten
Bundes. 1. Theil (esp. p. 58). Géttingen.

Justi, KARL W. Das Buch Hiob. Kassel.
MEIER, ERNST. Der Prophet Joel. Tiibingen.

DurscH, G.M. Allgemeine Com. iiber die Pss. (esp.
p. 10). Karlsruhe.

HENGSTENBERG, ERNST W. Commentar tiber die Pss.
H6LEmann, A. G. Nahumi oraculum (p. 3 ff.). Leipzig.
STICKEL, J. G. Das Buch Hiob (p. vi). Leipzig.

WENRICH, J.G. De poeseos hebr. atque arab. origine,
indole, &c. (esp. p. 229 ff.). Lipsiae.

VAIHINGER, J.G. Die Psalmen der Urschrift gemiss
metiisch iibersetzt und erklirt (esp. pp. 1-31).

SOMMER, GEORG. Biblische Abhandlungen: Die alpha-
betischen Lieder. 1. Bd. Bonn.

Von LENGERKE, CAsaR. Commentar iiber die Pss,
1848.

1849.

1851.
1853.

1854.

1855.

1856,

1857.

1859.

1863.

COBB

Bibliography 193

SCHOLZ, JOHANN M.A. Einleitung in die hl. Schriften.
3. Theil. (esp. p. 16). Leipzig.

WINER, GEORG B. Bibl. Realwérterbuch, vol. ii, ‘ Poesie,
hebriische,’

KEIL, C.F. In Hiavernick’s Handbuch der historisch-
kritischen Einleitung in das A. T. 3. Theil (esp.
Pp. 26, 70).

DELITZSCH, FRANZ. Das Hohelied (esp. p.83). Leipzig.

MEIER, ERNST. Die Form der hebr. Poesie. Tiibingen.

OLSHAUSEN, JUSTUS. Com. iiber die Pss. (esp. p. 13 ff.).

SAALSCHUTZ, J. L. Form und Geist der bibl.-~heb. Poesie.
Regensburg.

EWALD, HEINRICH. Das Buch Hiob (esp. p. 79 ff.).
Géttingen.

MEIER, ERNST. Das Hohelied. Tiibingen. Die poe-
tischen Biicher. Stuttgart.

HUPFELD, HERMANN. Com. iiber die Pss. 2. Ausgabe.
(Cf. ed. of 1862, esp. p. 449.) Gotha.

THENIUS, OTTO. Die Klagelieder. Leipzig.

MEIER, ERNST. Geschichte der poetischen National-
Litteratur der Hebrier. Leipzig.

REuss, EDUARD. In Herzog’s Real-Encyclopiadie, s. v.
‘Hebrdische Poesie’ (esp. pp. 605-7). Stuttgart.

Peters, A, Psalmen in der Urgestalt. In ZDMG.,
1857, p. 534 ff.

DELITZSCH, FRANZ. Commentar iiber die Pss.

MEIER, ERNST. Uebersetzung und Erklarung des
Deboraliedes. (With ‘Verzeichniss der Doctoren...
in Tiibingen.’)

CARRIERE, A. Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Kul-
turentwickelung, &c. (esp. p. 295). Leipzig.

HANEBERG, D. B. Geschichte der bibl. Offenbarung

(esp. p. 334). 3-Aufl. Regensburg.
o
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1865.

1866.

1868.
1870.

1871.

1872.

1873.
1874.
1875.

1877,

1878.

1879.

Systems of Hebrew Metre
WRIGHT, WILLIAM-ALDIS. Article, ‘ Poetry, Hebrew,’
in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible.

BLEEK, FRIEDRICH. Einleitung in das Alte Testament
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MULLER, D. H. Hiob,c. 4. In WZKM., p. 57 ff.
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PP. 377-9.
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BEER, GEORG. In ThLZ., no. 26. Review of Schlégl
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Metrik. In ZA., p.273 ff. Psalmenprobleme. Freiburg
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SCHLOGL, N. Review of Sievers. In Lit. Centralblatt,
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Gray, G. B. The Book of Numbers. In ICC. (esp.
p. 288 f.).

GRIMME, HUBERT. Gedanken iiber heb. Metrik. In
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Psalms. In Expository Times, December, esp. p. 108,
APPENDIX

Tue body of this treatise was completed in December,
1903. The third edition of Baethgen’s Psalms, in Nowack’s
Handkommentar (1904), seems to call for a separate notice.
For although the author gives in the Preface a half promise
of a more technical work, which is to present a metrically
arranged critical text of the Psalms, with as complete an
apparatus as possible, he gives us meanwhile a metrical
analysis of every psalm, much more available and helpful
than those of Duhm and Grimme, since not only the leading
metres but the variations under them are carefully noted.
In fact, the chief difference between the third and the second
edition of Baethgen’s book is in these sections, and is due
to the appearance of Sievers’s magnum opus. To him
Baethgen confesses his deep obligations, mingled with a
touch of shame that a ‘ Nicht-Hebraist’ should have to teach
Old Testament Professors how to read Hebrew verses. For
all that, he often takes issue with his master, and in the
majority of cases he has to strike out independently; for
as we have seen, Sievers glided over, without touching,
all the real difficulties of the Psalter, while Duhm announced
a solution in each case, but put in a general caveat in his
Preface.

That these difficulties are still real, and abundant, even
in Baethgen’s own mind, is evident from the multitude of
exceptions and qualifications in the course of the exposition.
A reader whose eye is caught by the phrase which precedes
204 Systems of Hebrew Metre

the detailed treatment of most of the psalms: ‘ Metre, double
threes,’ or ‘fours,’ or ‘fives,’ may suppose that at last we
are approaching a scientific basis on which to erect the
structure of all Hebrew poetry. But such hopes are grievously
disappointed ; for a closer scrutiny discovers the following
among many similar statements:

Psalms 9, 10. ‘I cannot make out a consistent metre.
Sievers thinks the original psalm was in sevens; Ley in
fours.’

Psalm 17. ‘Although particular verses give the scheme
4+4, 4+3, 3-+3, still I cannot recognize a regular, even
though a mixed, metre.’

Psalm 20. ‘The metre is impenetrable.’

Psalm 28. ‘The metre can hardly be discovered. Ley
takes vv. 2, 5, 9 for octameters, the rest for hexameters.
Double threes mixed with sixes and single threes seem
preferable to me, and even then we cannot avoid several
alterations.’

Psalm 32. ‘The metre shows single fours and double
fours, and with these apparently sixes and threes. At present
I must give up more precise indications.’

Thus far I have cited only from the first book of the
Psalms. As the fifth book is the most regular of all, let
us see how Baethgen meets the chief stumbling-blocks that
arrested us in the three middle books. They were found
in the following Psalms, and several others might have been
included: 45, 55, 62, 64, 71, 75, 79, 83, 84, 86, 95, 102.

It is very interesting to note that in every case Baethgen
recognizes, and remarks upon, the irregularities of these
poems, now suggesting explanations, again confessing that
the problem is too deep for him. By following him through,
one gains a new conception of the immense improbability
of Grimme’s thesis, that each psalm preserves the same
metre throughout. While I have duly acknowledged the
A ppendix 205
value of some of Grimme’s ‘emendations with the help of
the Metre,’ I can by no means accept his theory of a uniform
rhythmical structure, which might be called ‘Metre with
the help of emendations.’ The cautious path trodden by
Baethgen seems better; and though it shows that we are
still far from the goal, some approximation to concord is
evident from the fact that Baethgen’s analysis of the first
ten psalms which are examined in Chapter I of this treatise
agrees with my own in almost every detail. I proceed to
quote his metrical comments on the twelve psalms from
the three middle books which were just referred to, and
then to compare, verse by verse, his measurements of
Psalms 64 and 71 with those given in our Chapter I.

Psalm 45. ‘Double fours are frequent, and with them
sometimes single fours may be plainly recognized, especially
wy. 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 17, 18 (if we elide TP). Cf also Ley,
ZATW., 1901, p. 343. In other verses I cannot perceive
a definite metre. Accordingly, only the divisions of the sense
are indicated in the translation.’

Psalm 55. ‘Metre: mixed. At the beginning double fours
(vv. 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 15) exchange with fives, which are
almost exclusively employed in the second half of the psalm.
Vv. 19¢, 24e are single threes. Vv. 16, 18, 20 are dubious.’

Psalm 62. ‘Metre: vv. 3, 7, 8, 9 ab, double threes; vv. 2,
4b, 5b, 6, 10a, 12, 13, Sixes; wv. 4a, 5a, 9c, 10b, single
threes; ver. 1, an extraordinary double four.’

(My own scansion makes this psalm still more complex.)

Psalm 64. ‘The original psalm appears to have been
composed in regularly alternating double fours (vv. 2, 4, 6, 9,
11) and double threes (wv. 3, 5, 8, ro—though ver. ro is a
six-toned line). In gb oxne is superfluous, and probably
inserted from ver. 8. In 6b ‘10s is not to be counted in
the metre. The second wb, which is objectionable on
account of style as well as metre, would better be dropped.
206 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Ver. 7 appears—also on grounds of diction and contents—
to have suffered a more serious corruption. We should
expect here a double three and a double four, whose remnants
are perhaps preserved in the present text of ver. 7.’

Psalm 71. ‘ Metre: double threes; vv. 3c, 6c, 15 c, single
threes. After ver. 20 (19 c) no metre is recognizable. Here
a very serious text corruption seems to be present; see the
Commentary.’

Psalm 75. ‘ Metre:-double threes; ver. 9, two sixes. In
ver. 4a, perhaps we should strike out b5 as a gloss, in
ver. 9b, inv. On ver. 2, see the Commentary’ (which is
to this effect: following the LXX kat émicadeodueda rd Bvopd
cov, I formerly proposed 92 [for 8 1P1] IP}. I still regard
this textual alteration as essentially right. But since thereby
the metre does not come to its rights, we are to assume
a still further corruption).

Psalm 79. ‘Metre: double threes ; vv. 6c, 9 c, 13 a, sixes;
w. Ic, 2c, 8a, 13b, single threes; vv. 11, 12, double fours.
But often the lines seem to be too long or too short.’

Psalm 83. ‘ Metre: double threes; vv. 7, 13, sixes. Ver. 5a
is outside the metre. Some irregularities are perhaps to be
removed thus: ver. 5b, cancel Ny; ver. 10 b, "109 (Duhm);
ver. 12, 1933; ver. 19, Jow and 55. Ver. 18 b, supply
nbiyd, or the like.’

Psalm 84. ‘Metre: wv. 2-7ab, gab, fives; wv. 7c, 9c,
12 a, threes; vv. 8, 10, double threes; ver. 13, sixes; ver. 12 bc,
double fours ; ver. 11, a four and a seven. Probably the metre,
from 7c on, is variously disturbed. Ver. 3, read bp) without a?

Psalm 86. ‘There are recognizable, among other metres,
double fours, double threes, and sixes; but it is not in
my power to reduce the whole psalm to a stable scheme,’

Psalm 95. ‘Metre: double threes; ver. 7 a, sixes; ver. wb,
a single three. In some places, disturbances of the metre
seem to be present, which may be resolved in some such
A ppendix 207

way as this: ver. 3, strike out the second bea; vw. 4, 5,
strike out WN; ver. 6, omit M993) (LXX 322) as variant
to AY4D), or omit mn. Ver. 10: on metrical grounds, I now
consider that two measures have fallen out after 7192; read
something like maD “ND “WI; cf. Deut. 32. 5.’

Psalm 102. ‘Metre: double threes; vv. (3ab?), 13, 17,
28a, sixes; ver. 25b is a three; vv. 24 b, 28a, one measure
is lacking; vv. 14, 16, 19, double fours; ver. 27 1s not clear
to me.’

In the two psalms which follow, I give first Baethgen’s
analysis, then my own.

Psalm 64.

Ver. 2. 4+4 4t4
3. 343 3+3
4. 444 4#3
5. 343 3+4
6. 4+4 4+34+3
7. (Remnants of original

3+3 and 4+4) 5+4
8. 343 2+2+2
9. 4+4 343
Io, 2+2+2 B+2
Il, 4+4 5+3

After the first two verses, there is no agreement between
us. In order to carry through his theory of a regular
alternation of eights and sixes, Baethgen drops the pictorial
oxnp in ver. 5, and ends ver. 4 with the excruciating suc-
cession dabhér mdr, a perfect parallel to Horace’s -lus mus.
It is already plain that we cannot correct ver. 7 on the
basis of an ‘expected’ 3+3 and 4+4. In ver. 9, the
commentary does not explain the source of the two extra
tones,
208 Systems of Hebrew Metre

Psalm 71.

Ver. I. 343 3+2
2 343 3+4
3. 34343 3+4+ 3
4. 343 4+3
5} 343 2+4
6. 3+3+3 3+443
7 343 3+2
8. 3+3 3+2
9 343 4+4
Io. 343 3+4

. Il. 343 3+4
Iz. 3+ 3 3+3
13. 3743 4+5
14. 3+3 3+3
15, 3+3+3 5+3
16. 343 4+ 3
17, 3+3 3+3

3+3

oa \stats
19. 34343 344
20. (uncertain) 5+2+4
2I. 5 2+2
22. ” 5+5
23. ” 4+3
24. ” 4+4

Neglecting the ‘uncertain’ verses, the coincidences in
the rest are only three out of nineteen. But I am now
inclined to surrender wv. 3, 15, and 19, and make them (with
Baethgen) 3+3+3. Yet it is surely wrong to hurry wv. 2,
4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13 into the time which he assigns to them.
Moreover, vv. 1, 7, 8 are more naturally fives, as I have
called them. This being granted, there is no preponderance
Appendix 209

of the 3+ 3 movement, and so no sufficient justification for
such arguments as these:

‘Verse 5: ‘IN should be drawn to 5a on account of the
metre.’

‘Verse ro: YIN) is to be elided on account of the metre?

‘Verses 13a and b: Each part has a superfluous beat.
Strike out b>»... and mabay.’

‘Verse 18; Perfect parallelism of members is gained if
by is struck out as a gloss or variant to 15, and the latter
is drawn to 18 b.’

On a review of the subject, Iam more and more convinced
of the soundness of Bellermann’s judgement, as expressed in
the general statements already quoted in greater part:

‘Many Hebrew verses are alike in their feet, and even in
their syllabic value; but there is probably not a single long
poem with always equal, precisely corresponding poetic feet.
And in so far we cannot compare the Hebrew poems with
the odes of Horace, &c., though we may compare them with
the free choruses of the ancient Greeks, with the iambi of
Plautus and Terence, and especially with the cantatas of the
moderns, where arias, recitatives, choruses, &c. occur in
interchange. The Hebrew poet looked more to the suc-
cession of his thoughts than to the arrangement of his feet,
and so we find many acatalectic and hypercatalectic verses.’

The conclusion of the whole matter is in Budde’s words
(DB., article ‘Hebrew Poetry’), which I adopt as my own:

‘The present writer... has no finished metrical system
to offer, nor can he attach himself unreservedly to any of
the others that have been proposed, although he cheerfully
concedes that to each of the above-named champions of
metre we are indebted for much stimulus and help.’

July, 1904.

COBB P
I GENERAL INDEX

The references are to pages.

Accents, poetical, ignored, 4; con-
secutive, allowed? 7,91; are they
tone-signs? 56-8; lengthen the
syllable? 74, 75; determine
thythm, 75, 89; indicated by
position of syllables, 75; grada-
tions, 176, 177.

Alliteration, 64, 84.

Alphabetical songs, 38-45, 60.

Anapaest, normal foot (Sievers),
181, 182.

Anglican church adapts unmetrical
words to melodies, 99.

Arsis and thesis, essential elements
of a verse, 66; terms usually
confused, 172.

Baentsch, Bruno, on Grimme and
Sievers, Tgo.

Baethgen, F. A. W., metrical ana-
lysis of psalms, 203-9; follows
Sievers, but not wholly, 203;
makes exceptions and qualifica-
tions, 203, 204; on metrically
simple psalms, 205; on metric-
ally intricate psalms, 205-9.

Barnard, Lady Anne, ‘ Auld Robin
Gray,’ 24, 25.

Bellermann, J. J., kina theory, iv,
40,107; father of modern He-
brew Metrics, 36, 129; epitome
of his system, 36-48; adheres
to Massoretic text, 39, 40, 433
system of morae, 36, 37; on the
verse and its members, 37, 38,
209; on the song and its species,
38-47 ; on Pss. 111, 112, 38, 39;
on Pss. 9, 10, 40-5; on the
psalms of ascent, 47 ; on strophes,
&c., 48; general view of his
system, 48, 49, 186.

Bibliography, 191-202.

Bickell, Gustav, list of publications,
III; is commended by Schlogl,
IIo; epitome of his system,
I12-17; gist of his system, 187,
188; specimens of his method,
117-21; his volte face on iambus
and trochee, 117, 124, 125; his

 

liberties with the text, 125-73
his praise of Budde’s kina verse,
125; his unpoetical results, 127,
128; often restores true text,
126, 128, 188; general view of
his system, 128, 187, 188.

Briggs, C. A, arrangement of Pss,
42, 48, 33; commends Ley, 83,
84; on strophic structure, 141,
142.

Brown, Francis, metre as aid to
literary analysis, 142; relation
of editors to copyists, 142.

Budde, Karl, no finished system,
v, 209; and Bellermann, iv, v,
107 ; systems of metre unrelated,
423 assails Ley’s system, 98-
101; approaches harmony with
Ley’s system, IOI, 103, 107; on
the kina verse, iv, v, 103-7, 1253
analysis of Lamentations, 103,
104, 106, 107; praised by Ruben,
106; counts rises, not falls,
110,

Cantillation, 4, 55, 90,174.
Caution needed in interpreting
metrical phenomena, 7-9, 12.

Cesura, 7, 9, 103, 125, 176, 199.

Classic unlike Hebrew metres, 5,

7) 375 38, 8, 60 . 86
Tob 786. 45) 47) 4 1 74, 50,

Dactyl, spondee, or trochee, nor-

a foot (Saalschiitz), 57, 58,
0.

Delitzsch, Franz, nature of strophe,
140.

De Wette, on rudeness of early
verse, 53.

Diestel, L., connexion of metre
and music, 99.

Duhm, Bernhard, assumptions, 34;
commends Bickell, 187.

Ear, rather than eye, judges metrical
phenomena, 3, 5,19, 60,151,178.

English metre, parallel with He-
brew, vii, 6, 9-12, 24-7, 108, 109.

Ewald, Heinrich, epitome of his
system, 62-72; neglects prede-
General Index

cessors, 62,72; nature of poetry
and of Hebrew poetry, 62-4;
Hebrew rhythm not syllabic,
64-6, 71; alliteration, 64; nature
of Hebrew rhythm, 65-7 ; paral-
lelism of members, 66, 67; ex-
tent and limits of a Hebrew verse,
67-9; relation of Hebrew poetry
to history, 70, 71; on strophic
structure, 133-6; general view
of his system, 72, 73, 186.

Feet, not always equal in time-
value, 27, 28.

Fight at Maldon, 11, 12.

Folk-songs, related to Hebrew
metre, 73, 77> 79-

Foot, convenient though inaccurate
term, 5, 173, 174; normal, re-
sembles iambus, 37, 76,108, 109,
186 ; normal, resembles dactyl,
spondee, or trochee, 57, 58, 60;
normal, resembles iambus or
trochee, 112, 187; normal, re-
sembles anapaest, 181, 182.

Germany leads in systems of He-
brew metre, iii, iv.

Grimme, Hubert, special researches
needed, v; is commended by
Schlogl, 152; too little known in
England and America, 152, 1533
list of publications, 153, 154;
epitome of his system, 154-61;
laws of the morae, 156; verse-
measures, 159; how to find rises
of tone, 160, 161; on Job, 164,
165; on Paseq, 165; on the
strophe, 166, 167; relation to
other Metriker, 167, 168; on
the study of Hebrew metre, 168 ;
general view of his system, 161-
8, 188, 189.

Hebrew language, lends itself to

. apparent rhythm, Ioo.

Hebrew metre, system of, im-
portant, iii; variant schools, iii;

“ scepticism concerning, iv, 35, 36,
50; system of, must be fresh,
iv, 143, 1443; no comprehensive
system extant, v; system of, to
be reached by positive, not
negative, method, vi; system
of, depends on knowledge. of

 

2rt

Hebrew and of poetry, vii;
reader’s judgement is umpire, 3 ;
bearing on textual changes, 33,
34, 75» 76, 128, 163, 1643 early
systems, 35-61; systems unre-
lated, 72; survivals from earliest
times, 86; connexion with music,
53, 99; does it count both rises
and falls? 113, 122, 188; ad-
vantage of the study of, 168;
systems, connected and progres-
sive, 185.

Hebrew poetry, lyric only, 74;
nature of, 62, 63, 65-7; not all
metrical, 14, 29, 30, 33, 185;
relation to history, 7o, 73 3;
transition period, 71.

Hebrew rhythm, existence and
laws of, 89-92.

Hebrew verse, extent and limits,
67-9; in relation to varieties
of poetry, 69; structure, 86, 87,

2-5.

Hons, Felicia, ‘Bernardo del
Carpio,’ 25-7.

Hovering tone, 177, 181.

Hymns of Nisibis, 112.

Jambus, normal foot (Bellermann
and Meier), 37, 76.

Iambus or trochee, normal foot
(Bickell), 112, 187.

Ingelow, Jean, ‘ Like a Laverock,’
25. :

Isaiah and Job, Ley on, ror, ro2.

Isaiah xlvii, Miller and Ruben on,
147-50.

Job, Grimme on, 164, 165.

Jonah, Sievers on, 183, 184.

Keil, C. F., kina theory, iv.

Kina measure, iv, v, 28, 40, 103-7,

125.

Konig, Eduard, kina theory, 107 ;
on Bellermann and Budde, 107;
on Miiller’s strophic system, 146 ;
on Zenner’s strophic system, 151.

Koster, F. B., father of strophic
theories, 62, 129; epitome of
his system, 129-33.

Kuenen, Abraham, scepticism as to
Hebrew metre, iv, 169; criticizes
Meier, 79, 80, 187; criticizes
Bickell and. Gietmann, 127.
212

Lamentations, Budde’s analysis of,
103, 104, 106, 107.

Lanier, Sidney, ‘Science of Eng-
lish Verse,’ Io, 27, 124.

Ley, Julius, list of publications,
84, 85; commended by Briggs,
83, 84; constantly improved his
system, 84, 85,102,187; epitome
of Grundziige, 85-95 ; Leitfaden,
95; Massoretic text right mainly,
not always, 85, 86; existence of
Hebrew rhythm, 87, 88; laws of
Hebrew rhythm, 89-92; Hebrew
verse-structure, 92-5; evades
metrical difficulties, 96; treats
material arbitrarily, 100, 101 ;
abandons ‘compensation’ and
‘substitution,’ 101; on Job and
Isaiah, 101, 102; marks of true
strophe, 141; counts theses in-
stead of morae, 168, 187, 188;
general view of his system, 96-
101, 187.

Lines of poetry, irregular in length,
34, 52, 53, 60.

Lowth, Robert, scepticism as to
Hebrew metre, iv, 35, 36, 50.

Makkeph, 15.

Massoretic text, why followed, 4;
division of verses sustained, 71 ;
text, right mainly, not always
(Ley), 85, 86.

Meier, Ernst, epitome of his system,
73-7; folk-songs related to He-
brew metre, 73, 77, 79; Hebrew
poetry is lyric only, 74; accented
syllable regarded as long, 74, 75;
accent determines rhythm, 75,
76; accent indicated by position
of syllables, 75; basis of Hebrew
metre a double iambus, 76;
metrical analysis of Ps. 114, 77,
78; untenable theory of psalm-
titles, 137; his theory of strophes
the germ of Miiller’s, 137;
characteristics of strophes, 138,
139; general view of his system,
79-82, 186, 187.

Metre, accidental? 6; synonymous
with rhythm? 3, 6, 33, IOI, 171,
172; what is measured? 8, 9,
76, 81, 82, 122-4,

 

Systems of Hebrew Metre

Metrical difficulties evaded, 96, 203.

Monopody, dipody, &c., 157, 174,
175, 178.

Morae, system of, 36, 37, 51, 52,
58, 59, 156, 167, 168, 188.

Miiller, D. H., two books on
strophes, 142-50; his system
not new, 143; on ‘ Responsion,’
144-6; reply to Ruben, 149,
150; criticism of his system,
146-50.

Music, connexion with rhythm, 55,
56, 99, 123.

Nesiga, 15, 156, 159.

New books, properly challenged,
iii.

Nisibis, hymns of, 112.

Non-alphabetical songs, 46, 60.

Parallelism of members, 66, 67,
74) 75, 130, 131, 179.

Paseq, 165.

Pauses, 27, 176.

Periods, 176, 182, 183.

Phrase-group (Sprechtakt), 156,
157-

Poetry, not always metrical, gg.

Psalms, middle books, why selected,
3; latest critical school ignored,
4; should be recited alond, 5;
in 3-tone measure, 5-9, 13-21;
in 4-tone measure, 21-4; in
mixed measure, 26-9.

Riehm, Eduard, defends Ley, go.

Rime, 6, 8, 13, 16, 20, 64, 65.

Rises of tone, how to find, 160,
161, 180, 181.

Ruben, Paul, praises Budde, 106;
on Miiller’s theory of ‘ Respon-
sion,’ 147-50.

Saalschiitz, J. L., outline of his
life, 49; epitome of his system,
50-61; good criticisms of pre-
decessors, especially Bellermann,
50-2; morae, 51, 52, 58, 593
strophic structure, 523 cantilla-
tion, 55, 56; Bellermann’stheory
of sh’va, 54, 55; favours de-
scending rhythm, 57-60, 186;
forming metrical from Masso-
retic verses, 60; on Prov. 31, 61.

Schlégl, N., criticizes Meier, 80;
commends Bickell, 110; com-
General Index

mends Grimme, 152; refutes
Sievers, 184.

‘ Science of English Verse,’ Lanier,
10, 27, 124.

Semitic metrical parallels unsafe,
vii.

Shakespeare, ‘ Tempest,’ 12.

Sh’va, vocal, counted as syllable?
5, 54,55, 60, 108, 182.

‘Sievers, Eduard, his philological
equipment, 169, 189; becomes
interested in Hebrew metre,
169, 170; Studies in Hebrew
metre, outline, 170, 171; epi-
tome of his system, 171-81;
evades metrical difficulties, 96;
on universal rhythm, 171-8; on
the metrical systems of others,
179, 180; on the anapaest as
the normal foot, 181, 182;
on periods and strophes, 182,
183; on Jonah 1, 183, 184;
general view of his system, 181~
4, 189, 190. ;

Sommer, on strophic structure,
136, 137.

Stress determines metrical divi-
sions, 5, 64, 109.

II.

 

213

Strophe, built on stichos or verse ?
136, 137; nature, form, and con-
tents, 129-51.

oe theories, date from Késter,

2, 129.

Syllables, no exact alternation, 6;
prolonged, 46, 181; interchange
of short and long, 64; basis of
Syriac metre, 64, 112, 113;
were they counted? 6-8, 45, 64-
66, 71, 74, 109, 110,113, 114-17,
12

Tennyson, ‘ Break, break, break,’
10,11; ‘Charge of the Light
Brigade,’ 11.

Time-values, exact in music, in-
exact in poetry, 172-4.

Union desirable of best tendencies
of Ley, Grimme, and Sievers,
189, 190.

Verse-measures, 159.

Verses, different kinds in same
poem? 160, 162, 183, 204, 205.

Vowels, influence on syllables, 54,

55-

White, H. K., Hymn, 26.

Zenner, J. K., on strophes, 151 ;
refuted by Konig, 151.

INDEX OF AUTHORS

Abbott, 197.
Anton, §0, 53, 56.
Arnold, iv, 201.
Azarias, 52, 53.
Bachmann, 198.
Baentsch, 190.
Baethgen, 195,
202-9.
Ball, 196.
Barnard, 24.
Beer, 201.
Bellermann, iv, v, 36-
52, 54-6, 58, 60, 73,
74, 79, 81, 102, 107,

199;

108-Io, 128, 156,
182, 185-7, IgT, 209.
Bevan, 150.

Bickell, 110-22, 124-8,
137, 140, 164, 167,
194-8,

Bissell, 198.

Blass, 150.

Bleek, 194. ;

Briggs, C. A., iv, 33,
83, 84, III, 126,127,
141-4, 152, 196, 199)
200.

Briggs, E. G., 200.

Brown, iv, 142, 200.

Browning, 124.

Budde, iv, v, 13, 50,
51, 72, 83, 98-101,
102-8, 110,117, 125,
137, 152, 188, 194
8, 201, 209.

Budge, vii.

Buhl, 96, 169, 200.

Carlyle, 144.

Casanowitz, 198.

Cheyne, 198, 200.

 

 

Cladder, 150.

Cobb, 152, 153, 201,
202,

Condemin, 151.

Cooke, 197.

Comely, 197.

Cornill, 201.
Delitzsch, Franz, 137,
140, 143, 193. |
Delitzsch, Friedrich,

vii, 199.
De Wette, iv, 40, 50,
539 74) 191, 192.
Diels, 195.
Diestel, 99.
Doller, vi, 111, 113-15,
152, 184, 200.
Donnelly, 150.
Driver, 197, 200.
Duhm, 34, 106, 111,
214

149, 187, 197, 200,
201, 203, 206,

Dursch, 192.

Ecker, 125, 196.

Ehrt, 194.

Eichorn, 40.

Ewald, iv, 62-74, 83,
To8-I0, 133-6, 143,
182, 186, 192, 193.

Fiske, vii.

Furness, 32.

Garnett, 12.

Gerhard, 125.

Gesenius, 36, 50, 191.

Gietmann, I11, 127,

195.

Gilbert, 197.

Ginsburg, 5.

Gomarns, iii, 35, 37;
50.

Gray, 202.

Greve, 37, 59, 53.

Grimm, 73.

Grimme, v, 51, 102,
152-68,179,182,183,
188-90, 198~205.

Gunkel, vii, 198, 201,
202.

Guttenstein, 192.

Hahn, 49, 50.

Haneberg, 194.

Happel, 201.

Hare, 35, 37, 50.

Harper, 201, 202.

Haupt, iv, 202.

Heilprin, 195.

Hemans, 25-7, 80.

Henderson, iv.

Hengstenberg, 137,192.

Hitzig, 192.

Holemann, 192.

Hontheim, 200.

Hupfeld, 193.

Ingelow, 25.

Jones, iv, 50.

Justi, 192.

Keil, iv, 103, 193.

Kelly, 201.

Kennedy, 153,165, 202.

Kessler, 200.

Klopstock, 59, 99.

Knabenbauer, 196,

 

Konig, vi, 107, 146,
196, 199, 201.

Koster, 62, 129-33,186,
188, IgI, 192.

Kuenen, iv, vi, 79-81,
123, 124, 127, 137,
169, 187, 198.

Lachmann, 4.

Lanier, 10, 27, 124.

Leutwein, iii, 50, 56.

Ley, iii, 51, 83-103,
Io7-II, 122, 123,
128, 137) 140, 141,
164, 167, 168, 180,
184, 187, 188, 194,
196-203.

Lohr, 107, 195, 197.

Lowth, iv, v, 35, 36,
50, 53, 84, 103, 130,
131, 145.

Marquart, 199.

Marti, 34, 202.

Meibomius, 35, 37, 50-

Meier, 73-83, 102, 108-
10, 128, 137-40,143,
186, 187, 192, 193.

Mendelssohn, §2.

Merx,85, 111,137,140,
180, 194.

Michaelis, 47.

Miller, A., 196.

Miiller, D. H., vii, 62,

129, 137, 141-51,
167, 182, 183, 188,
199, 201.

Miiller, W. M., 200,
Munck, 192.
Nestle, 202.
Neteler, 194, 195.
Nicolas, 62, 192.
Niebuhr, 198.
Noldeke, 194.
Nowack, 196, 199.
Olshausen, 193.
Palm, 195.

Peiser, 202.
Perles, 199.
Peters, 193.

Pitra, 112.
Poznanski, 198.
Reinke, 194.
Reuss, 193.

 

Systems of Hebrew Metre

Riehm, 85, 99, 194.
Robertson, 199.
Réhling, 194, 195.
Rosenkranz, 191.
Rosenmiiller, 40.
Rothstein, 200.
Ruben,106, 147-9, 199,
200.

Ryssel, 197.

Saalschiitz, 49-62, 74,
81, 98, 108, 109, 113,
186, 191, 193.

Schedius, 40.

Schlégl, vi, 50, 80, 110,
III, 137, 138, 143,
152, 154, 184, 200,
202.

Schlottmann, 194, 195.

Scholz, 193.

Shakespeare, 12.

Sievers, iv, 14, 46, 96,
162, 169-85, 188~-go,
201, 203.

Sinker, 197.

Smith, W. Robertson,
202.

Sommer, 136, 137, 192.

Steiner, 194.

Steininger, 195.

Stickel, 192, 197.

Strack, 200,

Tennyson, 10, 11, 124.

Thenius, 193.’

Toy, 153,162, 167, 168,
184.

Uhland, 73.

Vaihinger, 192.

Vetter, 164, 199.

Von Lengerke, 192.

Wellhausen, 32, 43.

Wenrich, 192.

Westphal, vi, 197.

White, 26.

Whitman, 30.

Wickes, 195.

Wildeboer, 200,

Winer, 193.

Wocher, 192.

Wright, 194.

Zenner, 151, 199.

Zimmer, vii, 198-200.

Zschokke, 197.
III.

Gen. 4, Hee 76, 85,
98, 134.
9. 25, 27, P. 134.
Exod. 15, 1-18, pp. 46,
70, 85, 133, 136.
B. 20, p. 75.
Num, 10. 35 f p. 138.
21, p.
Deut. 32, pp. 46, 85,
169, 181.
32. 1, p. 92.
Judges b, pp. 43, 62,65,
6, 70, 85.
5. 12, p. 66.
14, 18, p. 76.
15. 16, z t3
1 Sam. 2, 1-10, pp. 48,
136.
18. 6, p. 75.
2 Sam. 1. 19-27, pp.
46, 105, 135.
1. 21, p. 68.
3. 33 1. PP 105, 134.

Pp. 95
22; 23, p. 48.
I Chron. 17, p. 48.
Job, p- 164.
8, PP. 77, 133) 135;
138, 169.
8, 4, 29, p. 46.
3. 17—4, 18, p. 164.
4, pp. 46, 133.
11. 13-20, p. 135.
13.23—14. 20, p.135.
27. 14-23, p. 135.
Ps, 1-15, p. 171.
1, pp. 46, 135.
1. T, p. 94.
1. 2, p. 115.
1. 3a, p. 160.
1. 3, pp. 114, 115.
2, pp. 48, 95, 132-4,
136, 139.
2. 10a, p. 160.
2. 10, p. 117.
2. 10f., p. 94.
4. 5, p. 116.
4.7, p. 115.
6. 7) P- 93-

 

215

7, p. 136.
7. 6, p. 67.
- 9» Ps 93.
8. 4—9, p. 69.
9-10, pp. 40-5, 77;
79, 204.
11, pp. 141, 163.

. 13, P

. 25,b, p. 160.

18. 43, p. 116.

19. 2, p. oI.

19. 7, p. 90.

19. 8, p. 94.

19. 8 fi., pp. 28, 70,
105.

19. 13, p. 161.

20, p. 204.

20. 6, p. 68.

20. I0, p. 93.

21. Io, p. 115.

25. 6b, p. 159.
27, p. 133+
27, I-I>, p. 105.
28, p. 204.
9, P- 135+
29, p. 134.
30, p. 135.
81. 2, 10, 15, p. 134.
81, 2-19, p. 136.

 

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

Ps, 31. 16, p. 93.

31. 20, p. 92.

81. 20-5, p. 135.

82, p. 204.

33. 5, p. 145.

33.9, pp.76,81,92,96.

84, 39, p. 77.

34, II, p. 141.

35, p. 136.

37, p. 171.

39, p. 77, 141.

42, 43, pp. 28, 29, 33,
52, 105, 132, 141.

42. 5, 9, 10, p. 94.

44, p. 77.

44, 19-21, p. 26.

45, pp. 30, 133, 135,
205.

46, pp. 21, 22, 133;
141.

46. 4, 5, 8, 9) p. 26.

47, p. 30.

47, 2-4, p. 26.

48, p. 141.

48. 8, p. 70.

49, p. I41.

50. 1, p. 94-

50. 12, p. 67.

53, pp. 22, 23.

54, pp. 4-9, 12, 117,
165, 166.

54. 3, pp. 5, 6.

58, pp. 26, 27.

59, pp. 132, 141.

60, p. 141.

62, pp. 30, 141, 205.

64, pp. 29, 119, 126,
205, 206.
216

Ps. 65. 5-8, p. 105.
66, p. 30.
67, pp. 12-14, 96,

68, p. 132.

71, He 30, 126, 206,
208.

73. 23, p. 115.

75, Pp: 39, 97, 206.

78, p. 141.

79, pp. 30, 126, 206.

80, pp. 30-3, I19,
141.

80. 3, p. 127.

80. 15-17, p. 32.

81, pp. 20, 21.

81. 8, 13, 17, p. 21.

82, pp. 14, 15, 96.

82.5, p. 14.

83, pp. 30, 98, 206.

84, pp. 30, 105, 206.

85, pp. 19, 20.

85.9, p. 20.

86, pp. 30, 206.

86. 8, p. 93.

89. 10-16, p. 93.

90, pp. 30, 133.

90. 4, p. 68.

91, pp. 18, 19, 135.

91. 2, 3, 7,15, p. 19.

92. 2, p. 93.

93, p. 77.

94, pp. 16-18.

94, TI, 12, 23, p. 17.

95, pp. 30, 35, 206,
207.

96, pp. 23, 24.

96. 12 f., p. 69.

96. 13, p. 24.

98. 8£., p. 69.

99, p. 141.

99. 8, p. 157.

100, pp. 15, 16, 96,
118, 128.

100. 3-5, p. 5.

100. 5, p. 26,

 

Ps, 101, pp. 105, 135.

102, pp. 30, 207.

105. 1-3, p. 26.

107, p. 141.

107. 13, p. 90.

107. 27, p. go.

110, p. 133.

111, 112, pp. 38, 39,
136, 171.

114, pp. 77-9.

119, p. 45.

119. 46 £., 90, p. 157.

120-34, pp. 46, 47.

121, pp. 70, 105,

124, p. 133.

125. 2, p. 141.

127, pp. 47, 95.

126-31, p. 105.

180, pp. 161, 162.

183. 2, p. 94.

137, pp. 105, 139.

139, p. 133.

141. Io, p. 67.

142, 7, p. 34.

143. 11, p. 34.

144, p. 141.

144, 12-15, p. 34.

145, p. 4o.

148, Pp: 77

Prov. 4. 1, p. 67.

31. 10-31, p. 40.

Song of Sol., pp. 48,
69

4, p. 120.
4. 16, p. 128.

Isa. 1-12, p. 142.

1, 5, 28, p. 132.

1. 21 ff., pp. 105, 106.

5. 1-7, p. 133.

5. 12, p. 75.

9. 7—10. 4, pp. 52,
132.

11, p. 133.

14. 4-23, pp. 70, 104.

14, 13-15, p. 104.

21, I-10, p. 133.

22, 3f., p. 105.

 

Systems of Hebrew Metre

Isa. 23. 16,pp. 105,114.
88. 10-20, p. 136.
40. 21f., p. 102.
47, pp. 105, 106, 133,

142, 147-50.

52.13—53. 12, p.133.
Jer. 1, p. 146.

9, I-12, p. 133.

9. 9-21, p. 105.

22, p. 105.

38. 14ff., p. 106.
Lam., pp. 28, 70, 85,

103, 106.

1. Ic, loc, p. 104.

2.134, p. 104.

2. 20, p. 106,

8, pp. iv, 40, 120,

124, 169.

3. 4, Pp. 103.

4, p. 121.

Ezek. 14. 12-23, p. 146.
15, 19, p. 169.

19. 1, 14, p. 105.

21, 1-12, p. 146.

26. 17, p. 105.

27. 2, 32, p. 105.

28. 12, p. 105.

32, 2, 16, p. 105.
Hos. 6. off., p. 105.
Amos 1, 2, 7,8, p. 146.

1, 2—2. 5, p. 146.

5.1, p. 105.

6. 5, P. 75:

8. 10, p. 105.

Obad. 6, 7, &c., p. 105.

Jonah 1. 3c-5b, pp.
183, 184.

Mic., p. 142.

2. 4, &c., p. 105.

8, p. 132.

4, p. 133.

Nahum 2. 1-3, p. 105.

Hab., pp. 48, 133.

8, Pp. 139, 149.
Zeph. 1. 4f., p. 105.

2. 12 ff., p. 105.
Zech. 9, p. 133.

 

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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

 

Editions with English Commentaries
or Introductions

St. Athanasius. Orations against the Arians. With an account of his
Life by W. Brieur. Crown 8vo. 9s.
Historical Writings, according to the Benedictine Text.

With an introduction by W. Bricur. Crown 8vo.
10s. 6d.

St. Augustine. Select Anti-Pelagian Treatises, and the Acts of the

Second Council of Orange. With introduction by W. Bricur. Crown 8vo. 9s.

: ; (Out of print.}

St. Basil : on the Holy Spirit. Revised text, with notes and introduction,
by C. F. H. Jounsron. Crown 8vo. ‘7s. 6d.

Barnabas, Editio Princeps of the Epistle of, by Archbishop Ussher, as
printed at Oxford, a.p. 1642. With a dissertation by J. H. Backxuouse,
mall 4to. 3s, 6d.

Canons of the First Four General Councils of Nicaea, Con-
stantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. With notes by W. Brieur. Second
edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.

Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, according to Burton’s text, with
introduction by W. Bricur. Second edition. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.

Kusebii Pamphili Evangelicae Praeparationis Libri XV.
Revised text edited, with introduction, notes, English translation, and indices,
by E. H. Gurrorp. 4vols. [Vols. I, II, text, with critical notes. Vol. III,
in two parts, translation. Vol. IV, notes and indices.] 8vo. £5 5s. net.
(Vol. III, divided into two parts, containing the translation, £1 5s. net.)

The Bodleian Manuscript of Jerome’s Version of the

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The Third Book of St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, against
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John of Ephesus. See p.83. Translation, by R.Payne Ssnru. 8vo. 10s.

Philo: about the Contemplative Life; or, the Fourth Book of
the Treatise concerning Virtues. Edited, with a defence of its genuineness,
by F. C. Conysrarr. With a facsimile. 8vo. 14s.

Socrates’ Ecclesiastical History, according to Hussey’s Text, with
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Tertulliani Apologeticus adversus Gentes pro Christianis. Edited by
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De Praescriptione Haereticorum: ad Martyras: ad Scapulam.
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9
CLARENDON PRESS BOOKS

 

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Introduction to Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, Book v.
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The Text, as arranged by J. Keste. 2 vols. 11s.

The Works of Bishop Butler. By W. E. Guapstone. 2 vols.
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

 

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Harmonia Symbolica : Creeds of the Western Church. By C.
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A Critical Dissertation on the Athanasian Creed. By
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Ecclesiae Occidentalis Monumenta Luris Antiquissima :

Canonum et Conciliorum Graecorum Interpretationes Latinae. Edidit
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The Key of Truth : being a Manual of the Paulician Church of
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Adamnani Vita S. Columbae. Edited, with introduction, notes,
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Baedae Opera Historica. Edited by C. Prusmmern. Two volumes.
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Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of
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Formularies of Faith set forth by the King’s authority during
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Homilies appointed to be read in Churches. By J. Grirrirus. 8vo. 7s. 6d.

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Gibson’s Synodus Anglicana. Edited by E. Canpwett. 1854.
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12
LITURGIOLOGY

 

Recent Works in English Ecclesiastical History

History of the Church of England from the abolition of the
Roman Jurisdiction. By W. R. Dixon. 3rd edition. 6 vols, 8vo. 16s. per vol.

Chapters of Early English Church History. By W. Barenr.

Third edition. Withamap. 8vo. 12s.

Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum : an attempt to exhibit the course
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The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of Religion, 1558-1564.
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Liturgiology

Liturgies, Eastern and Western. Vol. I. Eastern Liturgies.
Edited, with introductions and appendices, by F. E. Bricutmay, on the basis
of a work by C. E. Hausionp. 8vo, £1 1s.

Rituale Armenorum : being the Administration of the Sacraments
and the Breviary Rites of the Armenian Church, together with the Greek
Rites of Baptism and Epiphany. Edited from the oldest MSS. by F. C.
Conrsrare; with the East Syrian Epiphany Rites, translated by A. J.
Mactean. 8vo. 21s. net.

Cardwell’s Two Books of Common Prayer, set forth by
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Gelasian Sacramentary, Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae.
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Leofric Missal, with some account of the Red Book of Derby, the Missalof
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Ancient Liturgy. of the Church of England, according to the
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Third edition. 8vo, 15s.

Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae: the occasional
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The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church. By F. E.

Warren. 8vo. 145.

13
CLARENDON PRESS BOOKS

 

ORIENTAL LANGUAGES

Sacred Books of the East

Translated by various Scholars, and edited by the late

Right Hon. F. Max Mixer. Forty-nine volumes.
An Index Volume (Vol. L) is in preparation.

Sacred Books of India. Brahmanism
Twenty-one volumes

Vedic Hymns, Part I, translated by F. Max Mixer. Part II, translated
by H. Oxpenzerc. Two volumes(XXXII, XLVI). 18s. 6d. and 14s.

Hymns of the Atharva-veda, translated by M. Broosrrexp.
One volume (XLII). 21s.

The Satapatha-Brahmana, translated by Juzius EacEine.
Five volumes (XII, XX VI, XLI, XLIII), 12s. 6d. each; (XLIV), 18s. 6d.

The Grihya-Sitras, translated by H. Ovvenzerc.
Two volumes (XXIX, XXX), each 12s. 6d.

The Upanishads, translated by F. Max Mixer.
Two volumes (I, XV Second edition), each 10s. 6d.

The Bhagavadgita, translated by KAsuinAra Trimpax TELANG.
One volume (VIII), with the Sanatsugattya and Anugité. 10s. 6d.

The Vedanta-Sitras, with Sankara’s Commentary, by G. Turnaut.
Two volumes (XXXIV, XXXVIII), each 12s. 6d.
The third volume (XLVIII) with Ramanuga’s Sribhashya. 25s.
Vol. XXXIV—Part I of the Ved4nta-Sitras—is only sold with the other two
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The Sacred Laws of the Aryas, translated by G. Bitutrr.
Two volumes (II (Second edition) and XIV), each 10s. 6d.

The Institutes of Vishnu, translated by Jutius Joy.
One volume (VII). 10s. 6d.
Manu, translated by Grorc Biuter.
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The Minor Law-books, translated by Junius Jotty.
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Jainism and Buddhism. Twelve volumes
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Two volumes (XXII, XLV). 10s. 6d. and 12s. 6d.
The Saddharma-pundarika, translated from Sanskrit by H. Kran.
One volume (XXI). 19s, 6d.

Mahayana Texts, by E. B. Cowrtt, F. Max Miitter, and I, Taxaxusv.
One volume (XLIX). From the Sanskrit. 12s. 6d.

1A.
ORIENTAL LANGUAGES

 

The Dhammapada and Sutta-Nipata, translated by F. Max
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One volume (X, Second edition). From the Pali. 10s. 6d.

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One volume (XI). 10s. 6d.

Vinaya Texts, translated by T. W. Ruys Davins and H. Otpenzenc.
Three volumes (XIII, XVII, XX). From the Pali. Each 10s. 6d.

Vol. XIII—Part I of the Vinaya Texts—will in future only be sold in
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The Questions of King Milinda, by T. W. Rays Davivs.
Two volumes (KXXV, XXXVI). From the Pali. 10s, 6d. and 12s, 6d.

The Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king, translated by Samuet Beat.
One volume (XIX). From the Chinese translation from the Sanskrit. 10s. 6d.

Sacred Books of the Persians. Zoroastrianism
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The Zend-Avesta Parts I, II, translated by J. Darmusrrever. Part Ill,
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Pahlavi Texts, translated by E. W. Wesr.

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Sacred Books of the Mohammedans
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The Qur'an, translated by E. H. Parmen.
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Sacred Books of China. Six volumes

Texts of Confucianism, translated by Jamzs Lecer,
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Texts of Taoism, translated by Jamzs Lecce.
Two volumes (XXXIX, XL). Together 21s.

Also published by Mr. Frowde
The Gatakamala, or Garland of Birth-Stories. By Arya’ Stra, Trans-
lated from the Sanskrit by J. S. Speyer. 8vo. 10s. 6d.

The Dialogues of the Buddha. Translated from the Pali by
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15
CLARENDON PRESS BOOKS

 

The Sacred Books as originally numbered

First Series. Second Series.
I, The Upanishads, i. XXV. Manu.
II. Laws of the Aryas, i. XXVI. Satapatha-Brahmana, ii.
III. Confucianism, i. XXVII. Confucianism, iii.
IV. Zend-Avesta, i. XXVIII. Confucianism, iv.
V. Pahlavi Texts, i. XXIX. Grihya-Sitras, i.
VI. The Qur'’dn, i. XXX. Grihya-Sitras, ii.
VII. Institutes of Vishau. XXXI. Zend-Avesta, ili
VIII. Bhagavadgita, etc. XXXII. Vedic Hymns, i.
IX. The Qur’4n, ii. XXXIII. Minor Law-books, i.
X. The Dhammapada. XXXIV. Vedanta-Sitras, i.
XI. Buddhist Suttas. XXXV. Questions of King Milinda, i.
XII. Satapatha-Braéhmaza, i. XXXVI. Questions of King Milinda, ii.
XIII. Vinaya Texts, i. XXXVII. Pahlavi Texts, iv.
XIV. Laws of the Aryas, ii. XXXVIII. Vedanta-Sitras, ii.
XV. The Upanishads, ii. XXXIX. T4oism, i.
XVI. Confucianism, ii. XL. Taoism, ii.
XVII. Vinaya Texts, ii. XLI. Satapatha-Brahmazna, iii.
XVIII. Pahlavi Texts, ii. XLII. Atharva-veda.
XIX. Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king. XLIII. Satapatha-Brahmaza, iv.
XX. Vinaya Texts, iii. XLIV. Satapatha-Brahmana, v.
XXI. Saddharma-pundarika. XLV. Gaina-Sitras, ii.
XXII. Gaina-Sitras, i. XLVI. Vedic Hymns, ii.
XXIII. Zend-Avesta, ii. XLVII. Pahlavi Texts, v.
XXIV. Pahlavi Texts, iii. XLVIII. Vedanta-Sitras, iii.

XLIX. Mahay4na Texts.

Dictionaries, Grammars, and Editions
Sanskrit

A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Etymologically and Philologically
arranged. By Sir M. Moyren-Wizi1ams. New edition, 1900, greatly enlarged
and improved. 4to, cloth, £3 13s. 6d. ; half-morocco, £4 4s.

A Practical Grammar of the Sanskrit Language. By

Sir M. Moyrer-Wii1tams. Fourth edition. 8vo, 15s.

Nalopakhyanam. Story of Nala, an episode of the Mahabharata :
Sanskrit Text, with a Vocabulary, etc. By Sir M. Moyzer-Wittrams. Second
edition. 8vo, 15s.

Sakuntala. A Sanskrit drama, edited by Sir M. Monzer-Wiuutams.
Second edition. 8vo, £1 ls.

Katyayana’s Sarvanukramani of the Rigveda. See p. 23.
The Dharma-Samegraha. See p. 23.
The Mantrapatha, the Prayer Book of the Apastambins. See p. 23.

The Rig-V eda Samhita, with Sayana’s commentary, edited by F. Max
Mitier. Second edition, 4 vols. 4to, £8 8s. net. Index, £2 2s. net.
16